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ABSTRACT
Monarchical rule is said to have become anachronistic in a modern age of legal rational orders and representative institutions. And yet, despite successive waves of democratization having usurped their authority across much of the globe, a select few monarchs remain defiant, especially in small states. This stubborn persistence raises questions about the application of Huntington’s “King’s Dilemma” in which modern monarchs are apparently trapped in a historical cycle that will ultimately strip them of meaningful power. Drawing on in-depth historical research in three small states that have sought to combine democratic and monarchical rule – Tonga, Bhutan, and Liechtenstein – we argue that, contra Huntington, monarchs in small states are neither doomed to disappear nor are they likely to be overwhelmed by the dilemma posed by modernist development. The lesson is that the size of political units is a critical variable too often overlooked in existing studies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, 177.
2 Huntington, The Third Wave.
3 The most famous alternative is Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy,” 69–105.
4 Diamond and Tsalik, Size and Democracy; Anckar, “Small is Democratic, But Who is Small?”; Veenendaal and Corbett, “Why Small States Offer Important Answers to Large Questions.”
5 Huntington, The Third Wave, 100–106; Bamert, Gilardi, and Wasserfallen, “Learning and the Diffusion of Regime Contention in the Arab Spring.”
6 We follow Beetham, The Legitimation of Power, in defining legitimacy as something that is both expressed and conferred.
7 Sutton, “Democracy and Good Governance in Small States,” 204–205.
8 Veenendaal, “Size and Personalistic Politics,”245–257.
9 Ibid.
10 For review see Grugel and Bishop, Democratization.
11 Veenendaal and Corbett, “Why Small States Offer Important Answers to Large Questions.”
12 Diamond and Tsalik, Size and Democracy; Anckar, “Small is Democratic, But Who is Small?
13 Cf. Schedler, “Authoritarianism’s Last Line of Defense.” Examples of semi-constitutional monarchies in large states are Jordan, Morocco, and Thailand.
14 Sutton, “Democracy and Good Governance in Small States,” 204–205. See also Lowenthal, “Social Features”; Lawson, Tradition Versus Democracy in the South Pacific; White and Lindstrom, Chiefs Today.
15 Corbett and Connell, “All the World is a Stage,” 435–459; Veenendaal, “Analyzing the Foreign Policy.”
16 Diamond and Tsalik, Size and Democracy.
17 See Veenendaal and Corbett, “Why Small States Offer Important Answers for Large Questions.”
18 Sutton, “Democracy and Good Governance in Small States,” 204–205.
19 Lijphart, “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method.”
20 For example, Turner, Chuki, and Tshering, “Democratization by Decree.”
21 Thies, “A Pragmatic Guide to Qualitative Historical Analysis in the Study of International Relations.”
22 Latukefu, “King George Tupou I of Tonga”; Latukefu, The Pro-Democracy Movement in Tonga; Lawson, Tradition Versus Democracy in the South Pacific; Campbell, Island Kingdom.
23 Campbell, Across the Threshold.
24 Interview with former Tongan Minister, June 2012.
25 Crocombe, The South Pacific, 416.
26 For discussion, see: Campbell, Across the Threshold; Campbell, Tonga’s Way to Democracy.
27 For discussion, see: Lawson, Tradition Versus Democracy in the South Pacific; Campbell, Tonga’s Way to Democracy; Powles, The Tongan Monarchy and the Constitution.
28 Latukefu, The Pro-Democracy Movement in Tonga; Lawson, Tradition Versus Democracy in the South Pacific; Helu, “Tradition and Good Governance.”
29 Latukefu, “King George Tupou I of Tonga,” 55.
30 See Moala, Island Kingdom Strikes Back.
31 Wallis, “Transnationalism and the Development of the Deterritorialized Tongan Nation-State”; Larmour, Foreign Flowers, 191.
32 For discussion, see Lawson, Tradition Versus Democracy in the South Pacific; Campbell, Tonga’s Way to Democracy.
33 For discussion, see: James, “Rank and Leadership in Tonga”; Campbell, The Emergence of Parliamentary Politics in Tonga.
34 Campbell, Across the Threshold, 98.
35 Ibid., 97.
36 Cl. 51(1) cited in Powles, The Tongan Monarchy and the Constitution, 4.
37 Powles, The Tongan Monarchy and the Constitution.
38 European Union, Bhutan: Final Report, 3.
39 Mathou, Political Reform in Bhutan, 614; Sinpeng, “Democracy from Above”; Kaul, “Bearing Better Witness in Bhutan”; Gallenkamp, “Democracy in Bhutan”; Turner, Chuki, Tshering, “Democratization by Decree”; Turner and Tshering, “Is Democracy Being Consolidated in Bhutan.”
40 Turner, Chuki, and Tshering, “Democratization by Decree,” 184–185.
41 Gallenkamp, “Democracy in Bhutan,” 2.
42 Wolf, Bhutan’s Political Transition, 3.
43 Ibid., 3.
44 Cline, Bhutan: Globalization, Democracy and Uncertainty, 5–6.
45 Tobgye, The Constitution of Bhutan, 21.
46 Cited in Tobgye, Making of the Constitution, 21–22.
47 Bothe, The Monarch’s Gift, 37.
48 It could be argued that the “gift” of democracy could not be refused in Bhutan. The fact that voter turnout was close to 80% in the 2008 general elections supports the view that the whole process received the tacit consent of the people.
49 Kinga, “Constitution – The King’s Gift.”
50 Gallenkamp, “Democracy in Bhutan,” 16.
51 Kaul, “Bearing Better Witness in Bhutan,” 69.
52 Bothe, The Monarch’s Gift, 37; Bothe, “In the Name of the King, Country and People,” 5.
53 Hutt, “Nepal and Bhutan in 2005”; Bothe, “In the Name of the King, Country and People.”
54 Mazumdar, “Bhutan’s Military Action against Indian Insurgents,” 577.
55 Bothe, “In the Name of the King, Country and People,” 2.
56 Sinpeng, “Democracy from Above,” 41.
57 In English: “God, Prince, and Fatherland.”
58 Raton, Liechtenstein, 24–35.
59 Marxer, Direct Democracy in Liechtenstein, 1–2.
60 Beattie, Liechtenstein: A Modern History, 224.
61 Marxer, Direct Democracy in Liechtenstein, 13.
62 Beattie, Liechtenstein: A Modern History, 178–180; Marcinkowski and Marxer, Politische Kommunikation und Volksentscheid.
63 Beattie, Liechtenstein: A Modern History, 199–201. Furthermore, the prince also argued that in this case, the name of the country would have to be changed as well, because it could no longer be named after his family.
64 Venice Commission, Opinion on the Amendments to the Constitution of Liechtenstein.
65 Liechtenstein, The State in the Third Millennium, 73–74.
66 Constitution of the Principality of Liechtenstein, 2009: Art. 113.
67 Ibid., Art. 9.
68 See: www.demokratiebewegung.li
69 Marxer, Direct Democracy in Liechtenstein, 13.
70 Veenendaal, A Big Prince in a Tiny Realm.
71 Sutton, “Democracy and Good Governance in Small States.”
72 Baldacchino, “Islands and Despots.”
73 Lowenthal, “Social Features,” 38–39.
74 Marcinkowski and Marxer, Politische Kommunikation und Volksentscheid.
75 Liechtenstein, The State in the Third Millennium, 83.
76 Marxer, Institutionenvertrauen nach Parteiwahl.
77 Beattie, Liechtenstein: A Modern History, 215.
78 Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 17 May 2010.
79 Beattie, Liechtenstein: A Modern History, 179.
80 The election results of 2008 in Bhutan where the opposition party (whose president was the fourth king’s brother-in-law) won only two of the 47 seats in the parliament provides some evidence that the public were ready for change, and that they wanted broad-based participation in governance.
81 Sutton, “Democracy and Good Governance in Small States.”