- What is the absolute monarchy?
- Characteristics of the absolutist monarchy
- Absolutism
- Absolute monarchies today
- Absolute monarchy and constitutional monarchy
We explain what an absolute monarchy is, its characteristics and what absolutism is. Also, constitutional monarchies.
What is the absolute monarchy?
An absolute monarchy or absolutist monarchy is a form of government that allocates the entire can politician at the hands of a king. In it there is no separation of powers nor counterweights to the will of the monarch, whether or not there are political institutions other than the throne (such as parliament or the courts). In this system, the monarch's word is law, and no force of the Condition it can be contrary to him.
Monarchies of this type were common throughout much of ancient history, although in very different ways depending on the culture. Almost always it used to be thought that the power of the monarch was divine (that is, that it emanated from a God or that the king himself was one), so that his word was sacred and incontrovertible.
However, the absolutist monarchy is linked to the authoritarian monarchies of the Europe western late Middle Ages and beginnings of the Modern age, consequence of the crisis of feudal system and the beginning of the transformation process that led to the capitalism.
A perfect representative of this form of government was Louis XIV, French king who ruled from 1643 to 1715. He exercised in person the three political powers (executive, legislative and judicial) and to whom the phrase “L’État, c’est moi"(In French:" The state is me ").
Likewise, the last representative of absolutism in Europe was Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, who ruled from 1894 until his abdication in the face of the February Revolution of 1917.
Most of the absolutist monarchies of Europe ended up becoming constitutional monarchies, due to internal and external pressures, or falling under the weight of violent revolutions, to make way for republican governments of a different nature.
Characteristics of the absolutist monarchy
In general, absolutist monarchies are characterized by:
- It grants a monarch absolute control of the State, so that in his very person the sovereignty national. The monarch is a ruler for life and nobility.
- It lacks any separation of public powers (executive, legislative Y judicial), since either they are exercised directly by the king himself, or he has the final voice to approve or reject the decisions of any State institution.
- As a consequence of the above, the king could not be subjected to trials of any kind by his subjects, regardless of the measures he had taken or the decisions he made.
- The exercise of the power of the monarch is linked in one way or another with the law of God, or with divine mandates, and therefore the king is considered to rule as an emissary of the divine will.
Absolutism
Absolutism is the political philosophy and the model of thought that allowed the rise of absolute monarchies in Renaissance Europe, and through it the rise of modern states. In general, it was a doctrine that proposed the need to concentrate the greatest possible sum of political power in the hands of the king, so that he would rule in a unique, unquestionable, inalienable and lifetime way.
Absolutism is typical of the so-called Old Regime, that is, to the forms of monarchy prior to the French Revolution.
Not to be confused with totalitarianism contemporary. Its main difference is that sovereignty in absolutism did not fall on the State, but on the person of the king himself, so that there was not really a "State", but rather the authority of the king as a kind of pater families (paternalistic) on the totality of his subjects.
Absolute monarchies today
At the beginning of the XXI century, and surprising as it may seem, there are still different absolute monarchies, in which the State is controlled by the will of a king, such as:
- Saudi Arabia, ruled by Salmán bin Abdulaziz.
- Brunei, ruled by Hassanal Bolkiah.
- Qatar, ruled by Tamim bin Hamad Al Zani.
- Oman, ruled by Haitham bin Tariq Al Said.
- Swaziland, ruled by Mswati III.
Absolute monarchy and constitutional monarchy
The difference between these two political regimes is based on the limits of the political power exercised by the king. In both cases, the king is a lifelong, hereditary and sovereign authority, central in the management of the State, but unlike the absolute monarchies of the Old Regime, in constitutional monarchies there is a law above the wishes of the monarch, generally embodied in a national constitution.
Thus, the legal text establishes the powers and duties of the king, defines his power and authority, forcing him to coexist with other forms of public power to a greater or lesser extent. It is not necessarily that the king is part of a democratic government, but it does mean that its attributions are defined in advance, thus allowing the existence of a State of which it is a part.