Monarchy

Category: Fields of research

The term monarchy comes from a combination of Greek words mono (one) and archein (to rule). It refers to the type of government in which one person holds supreme authority as the head of state. Most monarchies are hereditary, with the rules of succession defined by primogeniture, while in some historical monarchies nobility elected the new monarch after the death of the previous. The reigning period for the vast majority of monarchies was life-long. In the twenty-first century, there are 29 sovereign monarchies (the British monarch is currently head of state of 15 sovereign countries), while there are also subnational monarchies in some countries. The rights, duties, and prerogatives of the office of these monarchies differ widely; some current monarchies are absolutist, some are semi-constitutional and semi-democratic, while in a large number of them monarch has a purely ceremonial role and the government of the country is fully democratic. Theocratic monarchies are those in which the monarch is not only the secular leader of the country, but is also a supreme religious leader. The legitimacy of historical and modern monarchies is justified based on religion, history, or tradition.

Sociological Research on Absolutist Monarchy

In the book States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (1979), Theda Skocpol examines how the activities of the state, as an independent actor, influenced the revolutions in France (1788), China (1911), and Russia (1917). All of those states were led by an absolutist monarch, exercised its power over the population in a centralized and repressive manner, its real control over society was weak. The inability of the state and its administration to reform, in line with unfavorable external and internal circumstances, inevitably led to the success of the revolutions in all three states.

In his two-volume book A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism (1981, 1985), Anthony Giddens studied the history to the development of capitalism in Europe in the new century. The most important factors for the development of industrial capitalist society were: the development of administrative power, the creation of an abstract legal system, and the development of a bureaucratic apparatus in charge of tax collection. All three factors first developed within absolutist monarchies, and then expanded and strengthened even more with the advent of capitalism and the international system of nation-states. Wars and preparations for wars between European states have contributed to the concentration of administrative power, fiscal reorganization, and the consolidation of absolutism. The simultaneous development of capitalism, industry, and nation-states, after the fall of absolutism, was supported by the fact that each of these phenomena depended on and strengthened the others, while such development was made possible by a broader geopolitical context, as European states became politically and militarily dominant.

In his book Lineages of the Absolute State (1974b), Perry Anderson explores the development of fourteenth-century feudalism. During that period, feudal relations in England and France weakened, but so did those relations in Eastern Europe. He believes that feudalism was reconstructed then because the domination of the aristocracy was transferred from the local feudal estates to the absolutist power of the central state and its monarch. The absolutist state implemented measures that protected the collective interests of the aristocracy, and it was these measures, although unintentional, that enabled the emergence of the bourgeoisie.

In The Court Society, Norbert Elias studies the process by which the chivalrous aristocracy, as it existed during the Middle Ages, with the emergence of an absolute monarchy in France during the reign of Louis XIV, was transformed into a refined nobility. In that period, the feudal aristocracy, which was in constant conflict, became part of the court society under the control of the absolute ruler. Instead of an open conflict with the king, aristocrats become part of the court elite who fight among themselves to achieve prestige and power within the court hierarchy. Achieving the highly prestigious status of the aristocracy was closely related to extravagant spending, which confirmed its position.

In the second volume of On the Process of Civilization (1939), subtitled State Formation and Civilization, Elias examines the process of "sociogenesis". In pre-modern Europe, the state, headed by an absolute monarch, became more centralized and began to monopolize the use of physical force and tax collection. It is the combination of control over the means of force and over cash flows that gives enormous power to the absolute monarch who imposes rules of conduct on the subordinate aristocracy at his court. The emergence of an absolute monarchy does not depend on the psychological character of the ruler but depends on the development of specific social structures, that is, figurations, which enable the emergence of absolute rule and a centralized state. The development of the division of labor, demographic growth, urbanization, the growth of trade, and the monetary economy created the conditions for the emergence of an absolute monarchy. First, the war relations between the various feudal lords calmed down, which enabled the progress of the cities and increased the division of labor. In particular, the growth of trade and the monetary economy enabled the monarch to create an independent source of income from the feudal estates of the aristocracy. As the economic importance of land ownership declined, so did the economic and military power of the aristocracy.

The development of trade and the monetary economy also enabled the growth of the bourgeoisie, so the absolute monarch used this change in the relationship between the power of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie to increase his power even more. The development of centralized power conditioned the increase of administration and bureaucracy, which, together with the increase of the economic power of the bourgeoisie, enabled the emergence of a modern state. The process of development of civilization and civility is long and takes place over several generations. The main change occurred in relation to the source of control over individual behavior. In the Middle Ages, external coercion prevailed, while later, internal, psychological control of the superego began to be the main source of control over individual behavior. Elias did not view this process as positive or negative, but viewed it neutrally and emphasized that arbitrariness in choosing which type of behavior to choose is the basis of good behavior.

References:

Anderson P. Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism (1974);

- Lineages of the Absolutist State (1974);

Elias. On the Process of Civilisation (Volume 3) (The Collected Works of Norbert Elias) (2012);

Engels. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (2010, in German 1884);

Giddens. A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism, 2 vols. (1981, 1985);

Grinin. The Evolution of Statehood: From Early States to Global Society (2011);

Hobsbawm. The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789-1848 (1962);

Linz. Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (2000);

Mann. The Sources of Social Power, Vol. 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760 (1986);

Mosca. The Ruling Class (2018, in Italian 1896, 1923);

Said. Orientalism (1978);