The Rise of Monarchy

Every year, the Economist magazine compiles a ranking of cities according to their ‘livability’. This is based on data relating to personal safety, availability of goods and services and infrastructure. Eight of the ten most liveable cities in the world are in countries with monarchies - actually with a single monarch - Queen Elizabeth II. It is notable that although Vancouver is top of this rating (with two other Canadian cities in the top ten), the highest ranked city in the USA (Pittsburgh) came only 29th. This surely is evidence that Americans were wrong to adopt a republican form of government, and should have stuck with a monarchy like their better-governed neighbours to the North.

Why should constitutional monarchy of the kind found in Commonwealth, Japan and Western Europe be associated with good government? One reason is that the monarch is an agreed national arbiter who, by inheriting their post, avoids all the enmities and political debts incurred by people who compete for power to get to the top. The very lack of power of the monarch also means that he or she does not get blamed for the disappointments and disasters inevitably associated with government. As a result, the monarch can provide a symbol of national unity and continuity in political life.

But monarchy also has a sort of magic, however humdrum the people who occupy these positions. This is partly a product of the wealth and status of the head of state, but also of the very continuity of the post. In the past, kings were seen as being divinely blessed, possessing some special virtue or charisma that set them apart from the rest of us. In England and France, it was even believed that being touched by the king would cure a person of the skin disease Scrofula. This magic continues even with the relatively powerless constitutional monarchs of today, making them (with their families) a focus for imagination, fantasy and envy.

There are several other hereditary regimes in countries that are nominally republics. In India, the Ghandi family possess the magic of royalty (at least in the eyes of several million supporters of the Congress Party). Being the senior member of this family is deemed sufficient qualification for both Party leadership and the post of Prime Minister, despite inconvenient facts like being a foreigner and having no experience of political office. In this respect, the Ghandi family also resemble monarchies, where a person can succeed to the most senior post in the land based on the sole qualification of being the eldest son or daughter of the deceased ruler.

There are other hereditary regimes which have the money and the power but not the magic. North Korea will soon be ruled by the third generation of Kims. Syria is ruled by the son of the preceding dictator, and other Arab states like Egypt and Tunisia would have followed in the same manner if their people had not overthrown their absolutist rulers. In these countries, hereditary succession exists because gangster leaders can only trust their closest relatives. But that of course is how virtually all our European monarchies began several centuries ago.