Absolute monarchy is a monarchical form of government in which the monarch has absolute
power among his or her people.
An absolute monarch wields unrestricted political power over the sovereign state and its people.
Absolute monarchies are often hereditary but other means of transmission of power are attested.
Absolute monarchy differs from limited monarchy, in which the monarch’s authority is legally
bound or restricted by a constitution.
In theory, the absolute monarch exercises total power over the land, yet in practice
the monarchy is counterbalanced by political groups from among the social classes and castes
of the realm, such as the aristocracy, clergy, bourgeoisie, and proletarians.
Some monarchies have weak or symbolic legislatures and other governmental bodies that the monarch
can alter or dissolve at will.
Countries where the monarch still maintains absolute power are Bahrain, Brunei, Qatar,
Oman, Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, the emirates comprising the UAE and Vatican City.
Historical examples Throughout much of European history, the Divine
Right of Kings was the theological justification for absolute monarchy.
Many European monarchs, such as those of Russia, claimed supreme autocratic power by divine
right, and that their subjects had no rights to limit their power.
James VI of Scotland and his son Charles I of Scotland and England tried to import this
principle.
Charles I's attempt to enforce Episcopal polity on the Church of Scotland led to rebellion
by the Covenanters and the Bishops' Wars, then fears that Charles I was attempting to
establish absolutist government along European lines was a major cause of the English Civil
War, despite the fact that he did rule this way for 11 years starting in 1629, after dissolving
the Parliament of England for a time.
By the 19th century, the Divine Right was regarded as an obsolete theory in most countries
in the Western world, except in Russia where it was still given credence as the official
justification for the Tsar's power.
There is a considerable variety of opinion by historians on the extent of absolutism
among European monarchs.
Some, such as Perry Anderson, argue that quite a few monarchs achieved levels of absolutist
control over their states, while historians such as Roger Mettam dispute the very concept
of absolutism.
In general, historians who disagree with the appellation of absolutism argue that most
monarchs labeled as absolutist exerted no greater power over their subjects than any
other non-absolutist rulers, and these historians tend to emphasize the differences between
the absolutist rhetoric of monarchs and the realities of the effective use of power by
these absolute monarchs.
Renaissance historian William Bouwsma summed up this contradiction:
Nothing so clearly indicates the limits of royal power as the fact that governments were
perennially in financial trouble, unable to tap the wealth of those most able to pay,
and likely to stir up a costly revolt whenever they attempted to develop an adequate income.
France
A widely held story about Louis XIV of France is that he proclaimed "L'état, c'est moi".
What Louis did say was: "The interests of the state come first.
When one gives these priority, one labours for one's own good.
These advantage to the state redounds to one's glory."
Although often criticized for his extravagances, such as the Palace of Versailles, he reigned
over France for a long period, and some historians consider him a successful absolute monarch.
More recently, revisionist historians have questioned whether Louis' reign should be
considered 'absolute', given the reality of the balance of power between the monarch and
the nobility.
The King of France concentrated in his person legislative, executive, and judicial powers.
He was the supreme judicial authority.
He could condemn men to death without the right of appeal.
It was both his duty to punish offenses and stop them from being committed.
From his judicial authority followed his power both to make laws and to annul them.
Denmark Absolutism was underpinned by a written constitution
for the first time in Europe in the 1665 Kongeloven of Denmark-Norway, whose § 2 ordered that
the Monarch shall from this day forth be revered and considered the most perfect and supreme
person on the Earth by all his subjects, standing above all human laws and having no judge above
his person, neither in spiritual nor temporal matters, except God alone.
This law consequently authorized the king to abolish all other centers of power.
Most important was the abolition of the Council of the Realm.
Prussia In Brandenburg-Prussia, the concept of absolute
monarch took a notable turn from the above with its emphasis on the monarch as the "first
servant of the state", but it also echoed many of the important characteristics of Absolutism.
Frederick William, known as the Great Elector, used the uncertainties of the final stages
of the Thirty Years' War to consolidate his territories into the dominant kingdom in northern
Germany, whilst increasing his power over his subjects.
His actions largely originated the militaristic streak of the Hohenzollern.
In 1653 the Diet of Brandenburg met for the last time and gave Frederick William the power
to raise taxes without its consent, a strong indicator of absolutism.
Frederick William enjoyed support from the nobles, who enabled the Great Elector to undermine
the Diet and other representative assemblies.
The leading families saw their future in cooperation with the central government and worked to
establish absolutist power.
The most significant indicator of the nobles' success was the establishment of two tax rates
– one for the cities and the other for the countryside - to the great advantage of the
latter, which the nobles ruled.
The nobles served in the upper levels of the elector's army and bureaucracy, but they also
won new prosperity for themselves.
The support of the Elector enabled the imposition of serfdom and the consolidation of land holdings
into vast estates which provided for their wealth.
They became known as Junkers.
Frederick William faced resistance from representative assemblies and long-independent cities in
his realm.
City leaders often revolted at the imposition of Electorate authority.
The last notable effort was the uprising of the city of Königsberg which allied with
the Estates General of Prussia to refuse to pay taxes.
Frederick William crushed this revolt in 1662, by marching into the city with thousands of
troops.
A similar approach was used with the towns of Cleves.
Russia Until 1905 the Tsars of Russia governed as
absolute monarchs.
Peter I the Great reduced the power of the Russian nobility and strengthened the central
power of the Tsar, establishing a bureaucracy and a police state.
This tradition of absolutism, known as Tsarist autocracy, was expanded by Catherine II the
Great and her descendants.
Although Alexander II made some reforms and established an independent judicial system,
Russia did not have a representative assembly or a constitution until the 1905 Revolution.
However, the concept of absolutism was so ingrained in Russia that the Russian Constitution
of 1906 still described the Tsar as an autocrat.
Russia became the last European country to abolish absolutism and the only one to do
so as late as the 20th century.
Sweden The form of government instituted in Sweden
under King Charles XI and passed on to his son, Charles XII is commonly referred to as
absolute monarchy; however, the Swedish monarch was never absolute in the sense that he wielded
arbitrary power.
The monarch still ruled under the law and could only legislate in agreement with the
Riksdag of the Estates; rather, the absolutism introduced was the monarch's ability to run
the government unfettered by the privy council, contrary to earlier practice.
The absolute rule of Charles XI was instituted by the crown and the Riksdag in order to carry
out the Great Reduction which would have been made impossible by the privy council, constituted
of high nobility.
After the death of Charles XII in 1718, the system of absolute rule was largely blamed
for the ruination of the realm in the Great Northern War, and the reaction tipped the
balance of power to the other extreme end of the spectrum, ushering in the Age of Liberty.
After half a century of largely unrestricted parliamentary rule proved just as ruinous,
King Gustav III seized back royal power in the coup d'état of 1772, and later once again
abolished the privy council under the Union and Security Act in 1789, which, in turn,
was rendered void in 1809 when Gustav IV Adolf was deposed in a coup and the constitution
of 1809 was put in its place.
The years between 1789 and 1809, then, are also referred to as a period of absolute monarchy.
Current examples
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, although, according to the Basic Law of Saudi Arabia
adopted by royal decree in 1992, the king must comply with Shari'a and the Qur'an.
The Qur'an and the corpus of Sunnah are declared to be the Kingdom's constitution, but no written
modern constitution has ever been written for Saudi Arabia, which remains the only Arab
nation where no national elections have ever taken place since its founding.
No political parties or national elections are permitted and according to The Economist's
2010 Democracy Index, the Saudi government is the seventh most authoritarian regime from
among the 167 countries rated.
Contemporary monarchies The popularity of the notion of absolute monarchy
declined substantially after the French Revolution which promoted theories of government based
on popular sovereignty.
Many nations formerly with absolute monarchies, such as Morocco, have moved towards constitutional
monarchy, although in some cases the monarch retains tremendous power, to the point that
the parliament's influence on political life is negligible.
In Bhutan, the government moved from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy following
planned parliamentary elections to the Tshogdu in 2003, and the election of a National Assembly
in 2008.
Nepal had several swings between constitutional rule and direct rule related to the Nepalese
Civil War, the Maoist insurgency, and the 2001 Nepalese royal massacre, with the Nepalese
monarchy being abolished on May 28, 2008.
In Tonga, the king had majority control of the parliament until 2010.
On the other hand, Liechtenstein has moved towards expanding the power of the monarch:
the Prince of Liechtenstein was given expanded powers after a referendum amending the Constitution
of Liechtenstein in 2004.
The ruling Kim family in North Korea has been described as a de facto absolute monarchy
or "hereditary dictatorship".
Scholarship Anthropology, sociology, and ethology as well
as various other disciplines such as political science attempt to explain the rise of absolute
monarchy ranging from extrapolation generally, to Marxist explanations in terms of the class
struggle as the underlying dynamic of human historical development generally and absolute
monarchy in particular.
According to Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process, monarchs such as Louis XIV could
enjoy such great power because of the structure of the societies at that time: more precisely,
they could play off against each other two rival classes, namely the rising bourgeoisie,
who grew wealthy from commerce and industrial production, and the nobility, who lived off
the land and administrative functions.
See also Jacques Bossuet
Constitutional monarchy Criticism of monarchy
Democracy Dictatorship
Enlightened absolutism Thomas Hobbes
Monarchomachs Totalitarianism
References
Further reading Anderson, Perry.
Lineages of the Absolutist State.
London: Verso, 1974.
Beloff, Max.
The Age of Absolutism From 1660 to 1815 Blum, Jerome et al.
The European World pp 267-466 Kimmel, Michael S. Absolutism and Its Discontents:
State and Society in Seventeenth-Century France and England.
New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1988.
Méttam, Roger.
Power and Faction in Louis XIV's France.
New York: Blackwell Publishers, 1988.
Miller, John.
Absolutism in Seventeenth Century Europe.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990.
Wilson, Peter H. Absolutism in Central Europe.
New York: Routledge, 2000.
Zmohra, Hillay.
Monarchy, Aristocracy, and the State in Europe - 1300-1800.
New York: Routledge, 2001