[Freeciv-Dev] Re: suggestion

["Ross W. Wetmore" <rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 04:45 PM 02/03/28 -0400, Mark Metson wrote:
>
>On Thu, 28 Mar 2002, Ben Webb wrote:
>> Are you suggesting that the UK is not a democracy?
>
>The U.S. is a democratic republic, the U.K. is a toy democratic republic 
>permitted by the monarch. If the people vote for the wrong party, the 
>monarch can demand a re-election, or so I heard years ago. Dunno if its 
>still true or was a myth all along.
>BB
>MM

Typically early republics still had a fairly distinct class structure
with the governing power in the hands of the ruling elite. This could
be the Roman Senate (and Equestrian class), the Hanseatic League and
the merchant class, most European monarchies as their feudal nobility
evolved into things like the British House of Lords.

The system is usually termed a Democracy when there is close to universal
suffrage and the key offices of power are directly or indirectly 
controlled by popular vote.

Britain, Canada, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, ... and a host of 
other countries are constitutional Monarchies which have evolved into
democracies by the rise in power of the House of Commons or its
equivalent, over the Monarch or the Senate.

The interesting aspect of evolved systems like the latter, is that most
of the underlying features of the earlier systems like the reins of
monarchical power are still present. They are constrained by laws and
customs and largely supplanted by the later offices such as Prime
Minister. But when the later system breaks down as it did in Fiji a
few years back, with two factions claiming victory, the Governor
General as representative of the Queen was the only legitimate element
of the government left functionning and the monarchy was in effect fully
back in control with its powers unchecked. Thus Fiji was always under
effective governance and never fell into complete civil war like for
example the Americans did in a similar crisis.

Should the British parliament render itself or be rendered incapable
of effective and legitimate governance, all aspects of governance would
revert into Queen Elizbeth's hands until such time as the parliament
was restored. But she is constitutionally constrained from acting on
the governing front if a legitimate govenment is in power, which is not
quite the way you put things above. This is similar for Queen Beatrice
of the Netherlands, King Carlos of Spain, the Afghani Khan in exile etc.

And incidently, Elizabeth II (as monarch, i.e. not an element of the 
British government) has the same role in the Canadian, Australian, New 
Zealand and many other Commonwealth countries which are constitutional 
monarchies with her as their Queen and head of state.

Cheers,
RossW
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