Among them, Japan, Malaysia, the Kingdom of Cambodia, the Kingdom of Thailand, the Kingdom of Denmark, the Kingdom of Norway, the Kingdom of Sweden, the Principality of Liechtenstein, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Kingdom of Belgium, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Principality of Monaco, the Principality of Andorra and the Kingdom of Spain adopt a constitutional monarchy.
In addition, the monarchs of Malaysia, Andorra, Vatican City and the Order of Malta do not adopt hereditary system.
Caption: UAE President Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Prime Minister Maktoum bin Rashid Allermark; The Governor of Solomon Islands, Nathaniel Vaena, and the Prime Minister of the Cabinet, Sir Alan Kemakeza. The United Arab Emirates elects its president among sheikhs and is a presidential country. If there is a governor in the Commonwealth countries, the governor represents the king of England, such as Solomon Islands and Canada. Generally speaking, these countries are not listed with monarchies.
The monarchy has a very long history, which lasted for thousands of years. However, with the development of the times, there were only dozens of monarchies in the world before the bourgeois-democratic revolution in the18th century, including Kuwait, Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Cambodia, Bhutan, Nepal, Japan, Thailand and Brunei in Asia. Europe has Britain, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Monaco, Liechtenstein and so on. Africa has Morocco, Lesotho and Swaziland; Oceania and America, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and more than a dozen other Commonwealth countries also practice monarchy.
There have been different types of monarchies in history. For example, in the early feudal society of western Europe, due to the powerful local separatist forces, there appeared an aristocratic monarchy with limited executive power of the king; Later, in the struggle against feudal separatism, a hierarchical monarchy appeared in Europe, characterized by the king seeking the support of the people by convening a hierarchical representative meeting. Of course, regardless of the feudal countries in the East or the West, the most typical and main regime is still absolute monarchy. Although the manifestations of absolute monarchy are different in different countries, its core idea is the same, that is, the power of the king or emperor is supreme.
With the development of capitalist economy and the enhancement of people's democratic consciousness, monarchy has increasingly become an obstacle to social development, and people demand to overthrow or change it. The "Glorious Revolution" in Britain from 65438 to 0688 marked a major change in the historical fate of the monarchy.
Since then, in most countries, people's democracy has replaced absolute monarchy, and equality and freedom have prevailed over class privileges. Only a few countries still maintain constitutional monarchy.
Under the constitutional monarchy, the power of the monarch is not unlimited, but limited by the constitution and parliament, but the power of the monarch is still very different under different circumstances. Therefore, according to the size of the sovereign power, the constitutional monarchy in the contemporary world can generally be divided into two forms: binary monarchy and parliamentary monarchy.
The main feature of the dual monarchy is that although the power of the monarch is restricted by the constitution and parliament, the actual power of the country is not in the hands of parliament, but controlled by the monarch and a few people close to the monarch. The government cabinet is the institution that the monarch exercises executive power, and the appointment of the prime minister and the stay of the cabinet are decided by the monarch. In addition, in order to effectively control the parliament, the monarch can appoint or designate some members. At present, only a few countries still retain this system, such as Jordan, Nepal, Bhutan, Brunei, Tonga, Morocco and Swaziland.
Today, most monarchies practice parliamentary monarchy. Parliament is the highest legislative body of the country, and the monarch is the symbolic head of state, whose duties are mostly ceremonial. The Cabinet is produced by and accountable to Parliament. Parliament has the highest legislative power and the government is responsible for it. If the government cabinet can't win the trust of the parliamentary majority, there will always be cases where the government resigns or dissolves the parliament and holds a new general election. Generally, the monarch only undertakes ceremonial duties, such as signing laws, presiding over assemblies, attending public ceremonies, and visiting as the head of state. In some countries, the monarch does not even have such formal power, but is only a symbolic head of state. Kings like Sweden and the Netherlands can not only choose the head of government, but also can not interfere in the work of the government at all. They even have to pay taxes like ordinary citizens.
Britain was the first country to implement a parliamentary monarchy. Legally speaking, the king of England can be said to be the most powerful ruler in Britain. But in fact, the king of England has long been a figure who "faces North Korea and ignores politics". The power vested in the king by law must be exercised through the cabinet and parliament. This system gradually extended to the European continent. By the end of 19, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, etc. A parliamentary monarchy was also adopted. Since World War II, most Commonwealth countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mauritius and Jamaica, as well as Japan, Thailand, Western Samoa, Lesotho and other countries have implemented this form of government.
Objectively speaking, the monarchy has played a positive role in history, promoting the development of civilization and the formation of a nation-state. Today, although the monarch and his royal family members have become the focus of media attention and sometimes even the object of criticism because of their privileges, luxurious life and huge wealth, in the eyes of others, the monarch is a symbol of national unity and a force for maintaining society, which is why they have not been completely sent to the history museum until today.