Constitutional monarchy

   

A constitutional monarchy is a form of government established under a constitutional system which acknowledges a hereditary or elected monarch as head of state. Modern constitutional monarchies usually implement the concept of trias politica, and have the monarch as the (symbolic) head of the executive branch. Where a monarch holds absolute power, it is known as an absolute monarchy.

Today, constitutional monarchy is almost always combined with representative democracy, and represents a compromise between theories of sovereignty which place sovereignty in the hands of the people, and those that see a role for tradition in the theory of government. Though the king or queen may be regarded as the government's symbolic head, it is the Prime Minister, whose power derives directly or indirectly from elections, who actually governs the country.

Although current constitutional monarchies are mostly representative democracies, this has not always historically been the case. There have been monarchies which have coexisted with constitutions which were fascist (or quasi-fascist), as was the case in Italy, Japan and Spain, or those in which the government is run as a military dictatorship, as was the case in Thailand.

Some constitutional monarchies are heriditary; others, such as that of Malaysia are elective monarchies.

Queen Rania of Jordan has commented that the difference between ruling a monarchy and ruling a democracy is that, in the latter, an error costs at most the next election, whereas a monarch might well lose their head.

List of constitutional monarchies

France was briefly a constitutional monarchy between 1789-1792 and from 1815-1848.

zh:君主立宪

Source: CIA Factbook 2004

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