First, let us define monarchy. It is a system of government where the leader inherits his/her position and/or where the leader or the leader's family chooses his/her successor. Republicanism is where the leader is selected in some other way. In a democratic republic, the leader is chosen directly or indirectly by the citizens, while in an oligarchic republic, the leader is chosen by some high-level committee that is not a family. It's possible for a nation to have a mixture of the two systems, and some monarchies are essentially crowned republics, where the monarchs are figureheads, professional socialites and celebrities.

Monarchy has been around for at least 5000 years; most large-scale societies have entered recorded history as monarchies. This includes those with the longest recorded history, Egypt and southeast Iraq. Some monarchies have been VERY long-lived, even if rather discontinuous. The Pharaonic monarchy lasted for over 3000 years; the last Pharaoh was Cleopatra VII (the famous one), who ended the line by committing suicide in 30 BCE, avoiding being captured by the oncoming Roman armies. The Chinese monarchy lasted over 2500 years, ending in the abdication of Puyi in 1911 CE. The Roman Empire was a monarchy, of course, with the western half lasting 500 years and the eastern half lasting 1500 years.

But not all societies were monarchies during all this time. The classical-era Greek city-states had rather tumultuous politics, with the kings often getting sidelined or deposed, and various citizens' assemblies and committees and strongmen often ruling. It was there that the word "democracy" was invented, though it was often a put-down meaning roughly "mob rule". However, this political experimentation did not survive for long under Philip of Macedon and his successors. Rome became a republic around 500 BCE, replacing its king with two consuls elected for a year, but as Rome ruled more and more territory, this caused social stresses and strife and civil war. It gradually ended from 49 BCE, when Julius Caesar became strongman ruler, to 25 BCE, when the Roman Senate gave Octavian the title Augustus.

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But over the last few centuries, something remarkable happened. Many monarchies either fell or became crowned republics. Let's see what happened. For a long time, republics did not grow very large, and the longest-lived republic larger than a city-state has been Switzerland at 700 years. But in the 1770's and 1780's, some rebellious North American colonies created a republic that dwarfed Switzerland: the United States of America. Its first leader, George Washington, had no desire to make himself King George I.

This event was quickly followed by the French Revolution, but that was a poor advertisement for republicanism, and France alternated between monarchy and republicanism before settling down as a republic in 1870. Most 19th century European nation-builders wanted monarchs for their nations, all the way up to the Great War, as it was known back then. Belgium, Holland, Norway, Finland (almost), Italy, Serbia, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece.

But that war destroyed four great monarchies and deposed lots of princelings. The Hohenzollerns were gone from Germany, the Habsburgs from Austria and Hungary, the Romanovs from Russia, and the Osmans from Turkey. Their successors created republics, and those nations have been republics ever since. New nations were created, and they were almost all republics: Czechoslovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. Serbia's monarch became Yugoslavia's, however. Later in the 20th cy., other monarchies would be deposed: Italy, Yugoslavia, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece.

Though Britain elevated various local princelings to monarchs in the Middle East and North Africa, some of those monarchies have also fallen: Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Libya. Most of the rest of the former British Empire is either crowned republics (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.), or pure republics (the US, South Africa, India, Kenya, ...). Most of post-colonial Latin America and Africa has been republics, though often not very democratic ones. In Asia, both Nationalist and Communist China are pure republics, Japan is a European-style crowned republic, and South Korea is a pure republic.

The only restored monarch I know of over the last century is Spain's. For all the rest, when a monarchy has been deposed, it has stayed deposed. However, some leaders have made themselves monarchs.

• North Korea has long been the world's only Communist monarchy (Kim Il Sung - Kim Jong Il - Kim Yong Un), though Cuba may now be competition (Fidel Castro - Raul Castro).
• Hafez Assad of Syria has been succeeded by his son Bashar.

Also some abortive ones:

• Saddam Hussein had wanted to be succeeded by either of his sons, Qusay or Uday, but they are all dead.
• Muammar Khadafy had likely wanted to be succeeded by his son Saif al Islam, but Muammar is dead, Saif al Islam is in hiding, and his other sons and his daughter are either dead or in exile.

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Is this a reasonable assessment? Has anyone tried to guess why monarchy has lasted so long or why it went out of style so rapidly? I wouldn't know where to look for discussions of such questions.

Tourism.

Bookmarked.

Ludwig II is one of my favorites.

Gallstones wrote:Tourism.

So monarchs and their families and estates can be good as tourist traps?

The British royal family certainly supplies a lot of soap opera for the tabloids, it must be said.


Turning to other monarchies, I'm not familiar with the Thai monarchy, except that it's a constitutional one with extremely strict enforcement of laws against lèse majesté ("injured majesty"), disrespect for the monarch.

Various Middle Eastern and North African monarchies have legislative councils, with varying amounts of power and varying legality of political parties.

• Morocco: elected, actual, pp's
• Jordan: elected/appointed, actual, pp's
• Kuwait: elected, actual, de facto pp's
• Bahrain: elected/appointed, actual, pp's
• Oman: elected, advisory (actual this year)
• United Arab Emirates: elected/appointed, advisory
• Qatar: (elected/appointed, advisory in 2013)
• Saudi Arabia: none

The UAE's Federal National Council has 40 members. 20 of them are appointed by the emirates' monarchs, and 20 of them by election. In 2006, less than 1% of Emiratis were eligible to vote, and this year, 26% of them were. Maybe in 2016, 100% of Emiratis will be eligible.

BBC News - Qatar elections to be held in 2013 - Emir -- 30 members elected, 15 members appointed.

Saudi Arabia has had municipal elections, but that's about it. BBC News - Women in Saudi Arabia to vote and run in elections, the next municipal ones.

lpetrich wrote:Has anyone tried to guess why monarchy has lasted so long

It's not easy to dispose of a monarch. It's much easier these days, I would guess, as one can readily communicate with whole populations with the purpose of mobilising sufficient people to bring about radical change. I can't imagine how this was achieved in, say, 17th century England.

or why it went out of style so rapidly? I wouldn't know where to look for discussions of such questions.

I suspect political philosophy and new idealisms were the primary driving factor.

... Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan (1651), regarding the legitimacy of power, championed absolutism for the monarch but brought attention to the 'social contract' and the rights and equality of man. John Locke's Second Treatise of Government (1689), challenged 'absolutism' on the basis that the legitimacy of any power was contingent upon said power fulfilling its obligations to the populace. Locke was to be regarded as the father of liberalism and one of the most influential thinkers of the Enlightenment, influencing the American revolutionaries and people such as Rousseau - who in-turn, amongst others, was to become instrumental in bringing about the French revolution.

Political philosophers can be the most influential people on the planet. Look at Marx.

I hope the last absolute monarchy in Europe gets abolished soon.

james1v wrote:I hope the last absolute monarchy in Europe gets abolished soon.

I was just about to ask you wtf you were talking about, then it came to me.

Mazille wrote:

james1v wrote:I hope the last absolute monarchy in Europe gets abolished soon.

I was just about to ask you wtf you were talking about, then it came to me.

Won't ever happen.

jamest wrote:

lpetrich wrote:Has anyone tried to guess why monarchy has lasted so long

It's not easy to dispose of a monarch. It's much easier these days, I would guess, as one can readily communicate with whole populations with the purpose of mobilising sufficient people to bring about radical change. I can't imagine how this was achieved in, say, 17th century England.

So technology is the key? Would it be difficult to run a large republic before modern communications technology? That would explain why republics larger than Switzerland were rare before modern times. Switzerland is about 220 km NS * 348 km EW (137, 216 mi).

The United States started out much larger, with its states being Switzerland-sized or less. From Portland, ME to Savannah, GA is 1100 mi / 1800 km.

First, communication speeds.

"Equine Data" Horses aren't cars. Like us, horses and donkeys get tired if they run too long, and like us, they travel at only 10 - 20 mi / day (15 - 30 km/day) at typical walk speeds. Horse relay systems like the Pony Express require changing horses every 10 mi / 16 km or so, but they can do 200 mi/day (300 km/day).

Speed Under Sail of Ancient Ships — TAPA 82:136‑148 (1951) An ancient ship could go from 4 to 6 knots with a tail wind, and 2 to 2.5 knots with a head wind. That's 180-270, 70-90 km/day or 110-170, 60-70 mi/day for continuous travel. One of the fastest sailing ships ever was the Sovereign of the Seas (clipper) at 22 knots (1000 km/day, 600 mi/day). One can estimate how fast smaller ships could travel by using a ship's hull speed, which is proportional to the square root of its length. Much more than that, and a ship slows down from the interference that its waves make. The SotS's hull length was 252 ft / 77 m, and scaling down to a 50-ft hull gives 10 knots (440 km/day, 280 mi/day).

It was only in the 1830's that railroad locomotives got good enough to outspeed horses and sailing ships.

Now, information storage and copying.

Movable-type printing was invented by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, and the first newspaper, Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien (Account of all distinguished and commemorable news), was published in 1605. I can't help but note that Benjamin Franklin, one of the leading American revolutionaries, was a newspaper publisher.

By the end of the 19th cy., telegraphs had become common, though their bandwidth is very low by present-day standards.

or why it went out of style so rapidly? I wouldn't know where to look for discussions of such questions.

I suspect political philosophy and new idealisms were the primary driving factor. ...

(Hobbes and Locke on the social contract...)

Thomas Hobbes published his Leviathan in 1651, and John Locke published his Two Treatises of Government in 1689. Thomas Hobbes had argued for autocratic government on pragmatic grounds, rather than any notion of the Divine Right of Kings. There were monarchists like Robert Filmer who did defend the Divine Right of Kings, however.

A lot of supporters of democracy and republicanism had also been inspired by the examples of ancient Greece and Rome. It was not for nothing that the upper house of Congress is named after the Roman Senate or that both supporters and opponents of the Constitution had used Roman-Republic politicians' names as their pen names.

Gallstones wrote:Tourism.

Haha.

I went to Cambodia recently. There were quite a few nice-looking buildings I couldn't go in because they were royal residences.
I went to Thailand recently. There were quite a few nice-looking buildings I couldn't go in because they were royal residences.

Tell me again, how do they improve the tourist experience?

I think I know what nation that remaining European absolute monarchy is, even though I myself would classify it as an oligarchic republic, like the former Republic of Venice. A council of aristocrats chose each doge, who would then rule for life.

Most Communist countries have been something like that, with would-be leaders having to get the favor of top Party officials.