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Considering recent discussion around the announcement of Prince William's wedding this seems as good a time as any for a good look at the underlying principles that support our Constitutional Monarchy system.
Those in favour of a Republic in this country often argue along the lines that a Monarchy is inherently illegitimate because it is unelected. That is, neither I nor anyone else have ever placed a cross in a box with the Queen’s name in it. I disagree with this, and my disagreement with this is based on a basic disagreement about our understanding of the nature of Democracy.
I do not believe in the necessity of democracy in the terms that are being used in this argument for a republic, but rather what I shall call 'weak' democracy. I believe this is the correct expression of political principle and it is one under which Monarchy is not essentially illegitimate. In fact nor is pretty much any other system, except under certain particular stated restrictions.
The first thing to point out though is that in referring to 'weak' democracy I am explicitly not making any value judgement about the concept or its correctness compared to anything else, or the system we have today. I am fundamentally a democrat and believe in the central moral importance of Democracy in any political system. But I believe something very particular by this. And I not only believe 'weak' democracy is the more correct and full understanding of Democracy and the idea of legitimacy for a state than the 'strong' democratic idea implicit in some republican criticism but also that it is, really, the understanding practically implicitly instantiated in our, and indeed almost all, actual democratic systems both in our country and around the world. The reference to 'weak' democracy merely refers to the fact that it is a logically weaker claim (in the sense of not requiring as strong assumptions) to make about what is necessary for Democracy than that implicit in the 'strong' democratic argument.
The distinction between the ideas of 'strong' and 'weak' democracy is mostly the distinction between election and consent. To exercise authority and power a leadership does not need election, as the republican criticism of monarchy seems to state. It merely needs effective consent. A Monarch does not have to be elected to be legitimate and have “weak” democratic consent, they must merely have the support and consent of their people to continue in that role in that system.
Firstly, it must be conceded even that neither authority nor power necessarily needs our consent to hold legitimacy over us. Ultimately, of course, all legitimacy, power and authority comes from God. For believers God is then this thing, an authority over which they have no veto, for non-believers morality may be substituted. Both hold a lawful authority over us without requiring our consent, let alone our election.
In more earthly terms, though, our consent is required, due to our basic sovereign right as human beings. This consent does not necessarily require explicit statement though, nor on a society wide level does it require each individual to like what is going on. It merely requires the society in general to accept the structure of things as they are. In Socratic terms we consent to the laws and constitution of the society we live in as long as we do not speak and act against them to change them, and hence cannot object when they act against us. A more precise definition of the concept is difficult to fashion, precisely because it is but we can more easily describe what it is not.
My contention is that not only is the 'weak' democratic ideal superior, that it is actually the ideal that almost all human systems of democracy are based on, but that the implicit principle of 'strong' democracy is frankly ridiculous, and almost impossible.
We can look at the relations between smaller non-state human associations and organisations. A person can lead a group, can lead an organisation, without having to rely on explicit democratic election or decision-making. It would be nonsensical to demand that a group of friends meeting together could not legitimately decide where to go or what to do without a secret ballot, or to demand that a person can not lead a group, or be followed by that group, without his action being put to a ballot of all the concerned parties. A requirement for consent is all that is required in all cases. A group of people together self-evidently has the right to follow the commands of a person they designate as their leader, without requiring each decision taken to be put to a vote.
This is relevant because I would argue that States are not essentially metaphysically different to other social bodies and human groupings. They have international sovereignty, but even what that means is difficult to pin down. They are still subject to the law, though they also shape it, as well as morality and the basic requirements of human decency and legitimacy. States are of course different to other bodies, but then all bodies are different to other bodies. A tribe is different to a family, a friendship group is different to a local government body, an international organisation is different to a national one. But the state is not differently different in any metaphysically significant manner to other human social groupings such that radically different rules apply. They are still figments of the human mind, a concept and institution invented and described to serve and represent a useful practical purpose. The same basic standards of legitimacy and morality apply.
When looking at the ideas of Monarchy and Republicanism, the more useful distinction we need is on the basis of Democratic consent and election or the lack thereof. In other words, it is between governments where a single individual or individuals has unique sovereign power irrespective of consent or otherwise, one where consented and responsible “representatives” of one kind or another govern, and an absolute democracy where there is no group to which power is delegated, and everything must be done on the basis of election. This scheme takes into account the relevant point, of direct election or consent, and in it one can obviously see that representative republican democracy and constitutional monarchy, however constitutionally strong that monarch may be, stand on the same strata. Note that by a constitutional monarch I mean one whereby the monarch is held to be himself responsible under the law to the same extent as his citizens, rather than having arbitrary power to act as he pleases, however few actual codified legal constraints there may be on the monarch’s power. Such a restriction under law is itself, after all, again merely a phrased restriction under morality. At it is this compliance with morality and the practical and effective nature of the system that matters when considering it.
