This quiz inspired me to revisit the abolition of the Nepalese monarchy, which I remember, and read about the royal massacre of 2001, about which I had absolutely no idea. The story is nuts.
Absolute monarchies are frankly no better than dictators but I have to say that constitutional monarchies can work well. I like a system where politicians run the country but are not the head of state, it stops the power going to their heads (admittedly not always!). As long as the monarch is the head of state but has little or no political influence (and compared to many large corporations and individuals that noone voted for, she doesn't) then I have no problem with that. I'd far rather have the queen as my head of state than almost any politician I can think of. No system is perfect but constitutional monarchies on the whole seem to be a better way of keeping the egos in check. Power corrupts, etc...
I agree, a constitutional monarchy is not at all bad. Although it does cost money, all the pomp and grandeur is good for tourism. So I don't think it's a bad thing.
Interesting debate here. I think there are good arguments for a ceremonial monarch, but I don't really buy the idea that they are good for tourism. People aren't going to say "I think I'll visit the UK for my holiday because it is a monarchy". We have castles and palaces that result from the monarchy and are tourist attractions, but would abolition of the monarchy really make them less valuable? Probably not. While it would be pretty ridiculous for a country like France or the USA to start a monarchy now, I do however think that if a head of state is introduced who is directly elected democratically, they will have a mandate to run the country however they want (something Queen Elizabeth II does not have and has never thought she had). And a ruler should have to put their decisions before a parliament in the knowledge that it is the parliament, not them, who holds sovereignty. We could make the Prime Minister head of state, but the formalities involved would likely distract them even
further from running the country. Another alternative is to have no head of state like Switzerland, but if the monarchy were abolished I don't think that would happen. People calling monarchy a waste of money should remember that whatever might replace it would quite possibly cost just as much, or more.
@Nathaniel It's weird, Switzerland doesn't actually have a singular head of state - the Federal Council is collectively head of state. I don't know whether any other country has that kind of system..? Der Guy is head of the Federal Council, but that doesn't make him officially head of state.
And yet monarchies make up nearly half of the top countries in the world (those with high income, life expectancy, low crime, low disease rate etc.)
Where as the worst countries of the world are all not monarchies.
Japan, U.K, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Holland, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Belgium, Luxembourgh. You can also through in New Zealand, Australia, Canada as monarchies as well.
Only absolute monarchies are usually bad countries and even then some of them are better than some of the surronding nations, like Thailand and Bhutan.
Even if one rates personal freedoms higher than they do income rates, crime rates some absolute Monarchies still rank higher than nearby republics, Like Kuwait, Oman, Qatar.
In europe many monarchs are held in higher esteem than thier politicians and usually poor huge sums of money into global charity projects. Some like Diana were loved even by non monarchies
Good question, these aren these all the monarchies in the world? Also, it would be interesting to make a difference between symbolic monarchies and absolute monarchies.
Yes, true. If we're not going to trifle about actual titles, then many dictatorships around the world function just like monarchies with absolute monarchs and hereditary rule. North Korea, for instance, is closer to being a monarchy in practice than Great Britain. The only thing that makes many of these countries monarchies is that they have some twat living in a castle who calls himself king. But the twat at the Vatican calls himself Pope and claims to speak directly to God, rather than simply getting his authority from Him. So, there's a difference.
Ah... the countries in the world where it's still mandated by law to worship some inbred rich family. Keeping Up With the Kardashians may be a bit of a cultural embarrassment but at least it's not written in to the constitution that we have to keep it on the air. I guess that's progress?
Been a few months since I last took this quiz. Somehow managed to miss the Vatican despite the conversation we were having last time about the appropriateness of its inclusion on the list. Guess I should have remembered it was on here even if that's a bit odd. Only other ones I missed were Japan and the two land-locked South African countries.
It's not required in all countries that have them to "worship" the royal family, or even to respect them. There are plenty of republicans in the UK for example, such as myself, and plenty of people are pretty vocal about their dislike of monarchies.
I wouldn't recommend trying the same thing in Saudi Arabia or Thailand though.
You are required to swear an oath of allegiance to the monarch and their descendants if you want to become a citizen, or to serve in certain public duties. Maybe people just lie when they swear the oath. Personally, I think people shouldn't be required to do so.
What are you talking about? They're there just for symbollic reasons. They have little to no influence in the government whatsoever. At least in Europe that is. Keeping Up With the Kardashians is made for entertainment. Why would you feel embarassed by a TV show? It's not a representation of a whole country, just of a stupid family (which is kinda foreign BTW).
Inbred? There are several members of the royal families in Europe who have married people outside them. Honestly, I'm not a supporter of monarchy, but if the people like it, then that's totally OK with me.
If you spent 3 weeks drinking your own urine and then yesterday had a clean glass of orange juice you're still not going to have a healthy set of kidneys.
There are people who drink their own urine, including an Indian Prime Minister. Not saying that it's a good idea, just saying that we maybe should be less mean to urine drinkers. It's less idiotic than monarchy at any rate.
I can't speak for anyone else but I like having an opportunity to read the instructions without losing valuable time on the clock. Wasted seconds are points lost!
@ander but why would you even take the quiz then (if you, not you but you know ;), are gonna look up the answer anyway... no point then. You might aswell just read an encyclopedia
^ You'd think so, but apparently there are lots of people that do look up the answers. To me that seems like a very strange thing to do when it is supposed to be a quiz.
Looking at this list now, the most amazing thing to me is the surprising lack of monarchies left in Africa. Just Morocco and the tiny kingdoms of Lesotho, Swaziland and Tonga.
Tonga is in Oceania. That reduces the number of monarchies in Africa to 3. I'm not surprised though, because most African countries are relatively new, being formed after 1950 for the first time.
The lack of monarchies in Africa is one of the very (very) few positive outcomes of colonialism. Other than that, colonialism hasn't exactly proven an awesome idea.
When you look at the different presidents in Africa, I don't think we can really say that republicanism has been noticeably better than monarchy would have been.
LIving down under is good. We are a constitutional monarchy with the Queen as Sovereign. She has a "substitute" of sorts, they being the Governor-General.
The Queen's Royal style and title in Australia is Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of Australia and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth.
Taken from: http://www.royal.gov.uk/monarchandcommonwealth/australia/australia.aspx
No, he was duly elected. He's aparently head of a "royal" family (quote marks according to Wikipedia), but it has not much to do with his political function.
No need to type all the countries in the world ;) plus if you dont know some that is fine. It is not about scoring 100% in whichever way possible but testing your knowledge.
the time seems fine to me, you do the ones you know and have a bit ov time left for some educated guesses. Not a typing contest without time to think and not so long that hou can just randomly put loads of countries in without rhyme or reason.
An interesting observation I posted above (it was deleted because the user who started the thread was deleted): Of the 17 countries listed as full democracies by the democracy index at the time, 9 were monarchies. This number has since changed to 10/20.
Many comments touting that the strongest and most successful governments still have constitutional monarchs. I am wondering whether that is any causal relationship though. I suspect it's just a coincidence. Western Europe has the most successful democracies, and also has a history of monarchies, but I don't think the former is really the result of the latter. The US's current quandary is the result of a culture that is rotting from the inside, owing mostly to greed and bigotry. I don't see how that has anything to do with not having a monarch. I'm sure some grad student has written an interesting paper on the subject. To the internet!
I think it is because the strongest and most successful governments are generally the oldest ones (i.e. countries where it is difficult to bring down the government haven't had the government brought down in a while). Monarchy is an older form of government than a modern democratic republic, so the most stable governments tend to be disproportionately likely to be constitutional monarchies.
The USA has the oldest still-in-use written constitution in the world and has had a remarkably stable and long-continuous government, more than many other countries that most people think of as older which in fact have undergone multiple revolutions, coups, or reorganizations in recent history and so shouldn't really be thought of as old. Great Britain managed to stay out of the revolutions that swept across Europe in the 1800s but that makes them more the exception than the rule.
You're right I suppose, though the USA can also be said to be an exception to the rule rather than the rule because of how early it became independent and how rich it was destined to be because of its huge amount of natural resources. Also the fact that its native population was small enough compared to its immigrant population that the native population could be oppressed effectively, ensuring that they couldn't overthrow the government. Perhaps it is more to do with the fact that something needs to be going badly wrong internally in a country to persuade sufficiently many people to take part in a revolution. The Netherlands and Belgium were occupied by the Nazis in the Second World War, for example, but the population had no reason to start a revolution after the Nazis were gone and what was seen as the original government was restored.
Not sure the revolutions of the 1800s had much effect on the number of monarchies in Europe, France excepted. I suspect the numbers actually increased in the 19th century (Bulgaria, Belgium, Greece etc). It was the world wars that did for them. The key to Britain's retention of the monarchy was getting the revolutions in early, not avoiding them - leading to a more gradual process reducing the monarch's powers to become a figurehead only. I'm a republican at heart - in part because of the personal privilege - but I can see that the system has its advantages.
Most of France's revolutions have actually ended up instituting, rather than abolishing, some sort of monarchy. 1789 led to Napoleon, 1830 led to Louis-Philippe, 1848 led to Napoleon III, and in 1870, the monarchists held a majority in Parliament, and had they been able to agree amongst themselves, we might just have had king Henry V. In the end, the Republic was instituted by a one-vote majority.
I still agree that monarchies aren't directly linked to good or bad governement. You can have very good and very bad government, as well as any shades in between, no matter the form of the state. So, given that, why would anyone *want* to live in a monarchy? Why would anyone *want* to be officially recognised as inferior to someone else, just because of their birth? Having lived in the UK, and actually briefly worked for Her Majesty's Government, I still don't get it. Sure, it's fun to watch from the outside - but being actually subject to those people? Nah, thanks. I'd rather have idiots I can vote out.
No-one's 'subject' to a constitutional monarch except in the most technical meaningless sense. If there was widespread support for a republic in the UK, it'd happen - just like anything else in a democratic society. I suspect a lot of the Commonwealth realms will become republics when Elizabeth dies.
Back in the 80s, when my dad was a medical student, the Bangladeshi government paid millions of dollars to the British government to get the broadcasting rights to some sort of royal wedding (Charles and Diana I think). My dad wrote a very critical editorial about the uselessness of it. This was at a time when most of Bangladesh was living in the most extreme of poverty, where famines were still common and barely anyone had access to electricity, let alone televisions. Why, he argued, was the government spending so much money on an ultimately worthless event that very few Bangladeshis could watch when it could spend that money helping the poor?
Thankfully things are better in Bangladesh now, but I still think he had a good point--why do people spend so much money and attention on people who are ultimately unimportant to our lives when we could focus our time and attention on the things that matter?
Which has precisely zero relevance to Norway's 21st century constitutional arrangements - which was the point of this exchange and the subject of the quiz. But yeh, good point aside.
Unless you mean Sabah for Kuwait as the last name, please update. King Sabah al-Sabah of Kuwait died this year (2020). The Emir of Kuwait is now Nawaf al-Sabah
Is that really interesting? I slightly regret bothering to look it up to be honest; I thought it was going to be something like "... take any female over the age of 12 as a wife."
The interesting part is their outcome. If they don't abolish it, they're running a risk of a corrupt leader. If they do, they're getting rid of the risk for no cost.
I recognize that this isn’t within the time frame of the most recent update, however, for the next update I believe Afghanistan should be included under Emir Hibatullah Akhundzada (at least if Wikipedia is anything to go by)
But i'm suprised that Tonga is monarchy! lol
Where as the worst countries of the world are all not monarchies.
Japan, U.K, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Holland, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Belgium, Luxembourgh. You can also through in New Zealand, Australia, Canada as monarchies as well.
Only absolute monarchies are usually bad countries and even then some of them are better than some of the surronding nations, like Thailand and Bhutan.
Even if one rates personal freedoms higher than they do income rates, crime rates some absolute Monarchies still rank higher than nearby republics, Like Kuwait, Oman, Qatar.
In europe many monarchs are held in higher esteem than thier politicians and usually poor huge sums of money into global charity projects. Some like Diana were loved even by non monarchies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_palace
Been a few months since I last took this quiz. Somehow managed to miss the Vatican despite the conversation we were having last time about the appropriateness of its inclusion on the list. Guess I should have remembered it was on here even if that's a bit odd. Only other ones I missed were Japan and the two land-locked South African countries.
I wouldn't recommend trying the same thing in Saudi Arabia or Thailand though.
The Queen's Royal style and title in Australia is Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of Australia and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth.
Taken from: http://www.royal.gov.uk/monarchandcommonwealth/australia/australia.aspx
Tuiatua Tupua Tamasese Efi is their constitutional monarch...
http://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/120795/restored-monarchies
the time seems fine to me, you do the ones you know and have a bit ov time left for some educated guesses. Not a typing contest without time to think and not so long that hou can just randomly put loads of countries in without rhyme or reason.
Thankfully things are better in Bangladesh now, but I still think he had a good point--why do people spend so much money and attention on people who are ultimately unimportant to our lives when we could focus our time and attention on the things that matter?
Haitham bin Tariq Al Said
In 2012, Liechtensteiners voted on whether to abolish the Prince’s right to…..
Is that really interesting? I slightly regret bothering to look it up to be honest; I thought it was going to be something like "... take any female over the age of 12 as a wife."