Под сенью королей

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of the relationship between monarchy and democracy, the question of whether the monarchical form of government is able to adapt to modern realities and how compatible it is with democracy. This problem is not well understood, and no new political theory has been developed on it since Walter Bagehot published his classic work “The English Constitution” about the British system of government in 1867. The phenomenon of the “northern kingdoms” is investigated, which lies in the fact that the kingdoms of Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have earned advanced positions in socio-economic development and evolution of democratic institutions and are at the top of the modern states’ development ratings. A possible explanation for this phenomenon is that the leading positions of the northern monarchies in the evolvement of the political, and as a result, the socio-economic sphere are largely due to the high level of unity of the nation, in which the form of government of these states, the democratic constitutional monarchy, plays a decisive role. To confirm this research hypothesis, the work of Phillip Manow “In the Kings’ Shadow” is used. This work suggests a possible explanation of this phenomenon providing historical and political analysis of the transition of the nation’s political representation from the King to the parliament when moving from absolute monarchy to democracy. In constitutional monarchies, the monarch preserves in symbolical and representational form the concept of national cohesion and the nation’s common will removing it from the competitive field of politics, therefore, monoethnic northern kingdoms have a high level of solidarity and national unity “in the shadow of the king”. This significantly affects coherence and efficiency of the system of public authority and public institutions. Moreover, in constitutional monarchies, the Crown symbolizes and represents historical continuity, cultural and ethnic traditions and norms of behavior; representatives of monarchial dynasties can serve as more adequate role models than elected politicians.