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Monarchy and democracy in small states: An ambiguous symbiosis

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Book cover State Size Matters

Abstract

Small states have a taste for monarchical government. Among the fifty states with fewer than two million inhabitants, twelve (24 %) are ruled by a monarch as head of state. This includes of course the relatively well-known royal families of Euro pean microstates like Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Monaco, but also includes faraway dynasties in places like Bhutan, Brunei, Lesotho, and Tonga. Furthermore, if monarchy is defined as a system in which sovereignty is nominally lodged in a single individual, the list would also include border cases in which the monarch is selected by special bodies of entitled electors (Samoa and the Vatican), and is not hereditarily determined.

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Authors
  1. Wouter Veenendaal
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universität Konstanz, Konstanz, Deutschland

    Sebastian Wolf

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Veenendaal, W. (2016). Monarchy and democracy in small states: An ambiguous symbiosis. In: Wolf, S. (eds) State Size Matters. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-07725-9_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-07725-9_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer VS, Wiesbaden

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-658-07724-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-658-07725-9

  • eBook Packages: Social Science and Law (German Language)

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