In a previous article I lamented the lack of research on what effects having a monarchy has on a country. Since then I have come across a few more studies outlining advantages monarchies possess. These studies suggest that monarchies tend towards healthier democratic practices. It is of some passing interest that none of these studies set out to prove anything about monarchies. In one case the researcher even seemed surprised at the results.
The first study is Presidents with Prime Ministers: Do Direct Elections Matter? From the title you can probably tell that the author did not set out to study constitutional monarchies. In fact they are dealt with after the fact in a footnote. The end conclusion is that presidential republics suffer more voter fatigue and a drop in votes for legislative elections of about 5-7% than either constitutional monarchies or legislative republics. (UPDATE: While the original post uses 'presidential' and 'legislative' descriptors it should in fact be 'directly-elected' and 'indirectly-elected' respectively. While most legislative republics use indirect election via a legislature, some do not.)
The first study is Presidents with Prime Ministers: Do Direct Elections Matter? From the title you can probably tell that the author did not set out to study constitutional monarchies. In fact they are dealt with after the fact in a footnote. The end conclusion is that presidential republics suffer more voter fatigue and a drop in votes for legislative elections of about 5-7% than either constitutional monarchies or legislative republics. (UPDATE: While the original post uses 'presidential' and 'legislative' descriptors it should in fact be 'directly-elected' and 'indirectly-elected' respectively. While most legislative republics use indirect election via a legislature, some do not.)
This is a serious issue for republicans. The current prevailing model put forward by (Canadian) republicans is that we could become a republic simply by making the Governor General an elected position. However, as the above study demonstrates, this would be harmful to our democracy (which may already suffer from some voter fatigue due to federalism). To support this option puts republicans in the uncomfortable position of advocating making our democracy worse, not better. So how about election by Parliament? This has its own problems. Politicians are likely to never support such a model until the Senate issue is settled and we have proportional representation. Going ahead without reforming these two things would put the governing party in a dictatorial position of having unlimited control of all three parts of Parliament. A second issue concerns whether Canadians would support such a 'politician's republic'. Indeed, it was the Australians preference for a presidential republic (in contrast to their leaders) that helped save their monarchy.
The second study is Constitutional Power and Competing Risks: Monarchs, Presidents, Prime Ministers, and the Termination of East and West European Cabinets. The study points out that while monarchs often possess powers comparable to those of strong presidential systems they behave more like presidents of legislative republics. However, there still turned out to be a difference:
Via the Washington Post
As the chart shows, constitutional monarchy was the only government form where early elections were the preferred method discretionary government replacement. Both legislative and presidential republics have a strong preference for choosing a new government from Parliament without resorting to an election. Therefore, if you consider consulting the people more often to be more democratic you must also conclude that constitutional monarchies have a leg up in this area.
The third study is Determinants of generalized trust: A cross-country comparison. This study doesn't deal with democracy directly but with how much people in a country trust each other and why (trust being an important factor in many economic and social considerations). According to this study there are only a limited number of factors that appear to increase trust among the populous. Both greater equality of wealth and having a monarchy were found to increase trust levels. And since it is possible (despite what republicans like to claim) to be both a monarchy and highly equal it makes sense that the three Scandinavian monarchies are at the top of the trust index (and most other indexes).
Notably, being a democracy didn't increase how much people trusted each other. That is not to say its not important. Trust is thought to build political institutions, of which democracy is one. So anything that increases trust strengthens a countries democracy since the people have the firm belief their fellow citizens aren't out to screw them.
This study dovetails nicely with the previous study I looked at. One of the theories it suggested was that monarchies actually liberalized earlier than republics. Taken together it is reasonable to suggest that if a country is going to become a democracy doing so as a monarchy will be less painful overall.
It is becoming increasingly clear as I research that keeping Canada's monarchy safe from republicans isn't just about protecting our traditions, it is about preserving the quality of our democracy.
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