Abstract
In the transition to democracy some autocracies transformed to republics while others evolved to constitutional monarchies. The paper inquires how constitutional monarchy is established. It models a hereditary king and a liberal challenger who coexist over a succession of periods and fight for power which brings office rents and the right to decide one’s preferred policy. The outcome of the confrontation is uncertain and may vary from period to period. If the king wins, he establishes absolute monarchy, but if the liberal wins he establishes a republic. Instead of fighting they may agree on a constitutional monarchy and share office rents and policy making responsibilities. Whether constitutional monarchy is agreed depends on the marginal utilities from rents and policy preferences of the two actors, the sizes of the benefits from rents and policy, the rates by which they discount the future, and the probabilities of winning office. The contemporary European constitutional monarch as a ceremonial head of state who reigns but does not govern arises as a special case of the general model.
Highlights
Constitutional monarchy is a “system of government in which a monarch shares power with a constitutionally organized government
The inquiry started from the premise that a hereditary king and a liberal challenger fight for control in a game spanning over time
The outcome of the confrontation between the king and the liberal in each period is uncertain; absolute monarchy may be succeeded by republic excluding the king from the spoils of office, or the republic may be overthrown by the royalist side
Summary
Constitutional monarchy is a “system of government in which a monarch shares power with a constitutionally organized government. The leading theories of the transition from autocracy to democracy equate autocratic rule to policy making by a privileged and wealthy elite, and democracy with government chosen in competitive elections They focus on how and why the disenfranchised poorer classes of the population obtain the right to vote, but they leave unexplored the question of why the office of the head of the state may remain in the hands of a hereditary king. Under constitutional monarchy the king and the liberal (a) share the rents from office and (b) implement a policy which combines their different policy preferences. The paper explores whether there are values of the rent shares and the weights of policy preferences which, if chosen, will make the king and the liberal simultaneously better off in comparison to the pure forms of absolute monarchy or republic.
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