Is political engagement by constitutional monarchs compatible with democracy?
| Author | Kana Inata |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/2057891121991690 |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Theoretical Endeavors |
Is political engagement by
constitutional monarchs
compatible with democracy?
Kana Inata
Waseda University, Japan
Abstract
Constitutional monarchies have proved to be resilient, and some have made substantive political
interventions even though their positions are mostly hereditary, without granted constitutional
channels to do so. This article examines how constitutional monarchs can influence political affairs
and what impact royal intervention can have on politics. I argue that constitutional monarchs
affect politics indirectly by influencing the preferences of the public who have de jure power to
influence political leaders. The analyses herein show that constitutional monarchs do not
indiscriminately intervene in politics, but their decisions to intervene reflect the public’s pre-
ferences. First, constitutional monarchs with little public approval become self-restraining and do
not attempt to assert their political preferences. Second, they are more likely to intervene in
politics when the public is less satisfied about the incumbent government. These findings are
illustrated with historical narratives regarding the political involvement of King Bhumibol Adu-
lyadej of Thailand in the 2000s.
Keywords
constitutional monarchy, formal model, hereditary political institutions, monarchy, Thailand
Introduction
Theoretical literature on monarchy suggests that constitutional monarchies
1
only survive if mon-
archs are precluded from influencing politics. North and Weingast (1989) analyse constitutional
evolution in 17th-century England and argue that the creation of institutional checks on the Crown
contributed to economic growth. Scholars such as Rosenthal (1998) and Acemoglu et al. (2005)
suggest that checks on monarchs’ political or economic influence are a key determinant of the
divergence between the French and British monarchies. Despite these theoretical insights, some
Corresponding author:
Kana Inata, 1-6-1 Nishiwaseda, Shinjuku, Tokyo 169-8050, Japan.
Email: kinata@aoni.waseda.jp
Asian Journal of Comparative Politics
ªThe Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/2057891121991690
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2022, Vol. 7(4) 1127–1142
Theoretical Endeavors
monarchs continue to actively intervene in political affairs and sometimes make considerable
political changes. In Thailand, King Bhumibol’s speech following the Asian currency crisis sig-
nificantly affected the national development strategy (Piboolsravut, 2004); concerning a popular
constitutional reform initiative, Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein explicitly asked the people
to endorse his proposals (Veenendaal, 2014: 337); and regarding the political crisis in Catalonia,
King Felipe VI of Spain fiercely accused separatist leaders of threatening national unity (Minder,
2017).
This article seeks to answer the question of under what conditions constitutional monarchs
intervene in politics. In the process of liberalisation, monarchs typically make a public commit-
ment to refrain from attempting to enact their personal political preferences. Although they are
given pro forma final say over bills and appointments, they usually do not possess any other
substantive de jure power over the decision-making process. What factors motivate them to
intervene beyond their authority? By answering this question, this article also seeks to clarify
what impact royal intervention can have on democratic politics. Since the positions of monarchs
are mostly hereditary, they are not subject to electoral accountability. Mainstream democracy
theory highlights the significance of elections in creating accountability (Barro, 1973; Besley and
Burgess, 2002; Lijphart, 1999; Manin et al., 1999); in this body of theory, hereditary political
institutions implicitly receive a negative assessment. Considering that some governments acknowl-
edge hereditary political structures, however, there should be some mechanisms that can make
monarchy compatible with democracy. In other words, revealing the conditions under which
constitutional monarchs intervene in politics clarifies whether their decisions to intervene are in
agreement with the public’s preferences.
This article addresses these questions by developing a simple formal model in which a consti-
tutional monarch determines whether to intervene in domestic politics, taking into account the
public’s susceptibility to royal intervention. This formal setup allows us to systematically examine
monarchs’ behaviour, since it identifies not only the conditions under which a monarch intervenes
in domestic politics, but also the conditions under which a monarch remains politically inactive.
This is in sharp contrast with Baldwin and Holzinger’s (2019) expert survey on traditional political
institutions, as their survey highlights traditional political institutions that are active enough to
observe, and potentially overlooks those that are inactive or abolished. Thus, this article seeks to
facilitate a coherent understanding of the strategic interaction between constitutional monarchies
and political leaders, rather than simply arguing that the presence of politically powerful consti-
tutional monarchs is anomalistic or monarch-dependent. In addition, this article provides historical
narratives regarding royal interventions and their compatibility with the public’s preferences in
Thailand. The narratives show that King Bhumibol Adulyadej exploited informal chan nels to
intervene and varied the timing of his interventions depending on public opinion, despite being
granted formal channels with strong legal protections for intervention.
Through formal analyses, this article argues that monarchs’ abilities to make their words heard
allow them to affect politics indirectly by influencing the preferences of the public who have de
jure power to affect political leaders. Pro-monarchy citizens may change their political preferences
after hearing monarchs’ messages and may expect political leaders to follow sovereign guidance,
while others may not. The level of public susceptibility affects the cost that political leaders face
through bargaining failure, and thus the monarch’s willingness to intervene in politics. Further-
more, the formal analysis demonstrates that constitutional monarchs do not indiscriminately inter-
vene in politics, but that their decisions to intervene reflect the public’s preferences in two ways:
first, constitutional monarchs will be reluctant to make political interventions that can backfire.
1128 Asian Journal of Comparative Politics 7(4)
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