COVID-19 Update: NED is continuing to operate during this worldwide health emergency, and to make grants in support of democracy. However, our office is closed to the public and all in-person events and meetings have been postponed, cancelled or are occurring virtually.
In this essay, the authors propose a three-part ideal-type typology that distinguishes between “ruling monarchy,” “constitutional monarchy,” and what they call “democratic parliamentary monarchy” (or DPM for short). For us, the defining characteristic of a DPM is that only the freely elected parliament forms and terminates the government. In a constitutional monarchy, by contrast, there is a strong element of dual legitimacy in that parliament and the monarch need each other’s support in order to form or terminate a government. In still greater contrast, in ruling monarchies the monarch can often unilaterally form or terminate the government. Moreover, each of these three types comes with its own set of patterns concerning the rule of law, constitutional constraints on the monarch, the status of parliament, and the relative autonomy of the judiciary.
About the Authors
Alfred Stepan
Alfred Stepan is the founding director of Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR), and author (with Juan J. Linz) of Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe.
Juli F. Minoves is assistant professor of political science and associate director of the International Studies Institute (ISI) at the University of La Verne, California.
While “autocracy promotion” presents a real danger, its influence so far has been limited. Because authoritarian regimes are concerned first with furthering their own interests, their interventions often have contradictory…
Many countries have adopted the form of democracy with little of its substance. This makes the task of classifying regimes more difficult, but also more important.
