Notes

I do not know how to test my case econometrically. The control variables to be included in equations regressing a measure of liberty or stability or prosperity or whatever on presence or absence of monarchy of some type or other are too ineffable and too many. We would have to devise variables for such conditions as history and traditions, geography, climate, natural resources, type of economic system, past forms of government, ethnicity and ethnic homogeneity or diversity, education, religion, and so on. Plausible historical data points are too few. Someone cleverer than I might devise some sort of econometric test after all. Meanwhile, we must weigh the pros and cons of monarchy and democracy against one another qualitatively as best we can.
Monarchist organizations exist in surprisingly many countries; a few of their web sites appear in the References. Even Argentina has a small monarchist movement, described in the September 1994 issue of Monarchy at the site of the International Monarchist League.
Barry (2003) partially summarizes them. Hayek (1979) describes the defects at length and proposes an elaborate reform of the system of representation, not discussing monarchy. James Buchanan and the Public Choice school analyze democracy in many writings.
I hope that readers will allow me the stylistic convenience of using “king” to designate a reigning queen also, as the word “koning” does in the Dutch constitution, and also of using “he” or “him” or “his” to cover “she” or “her” as context requires.
“[T]he first and indispensable condition for the exercise of responsibility is to separate executive power from supreme power. Constitutional monarchy attains this great aim. But this advantage would be lost if the two powers were confused” (Constant, p. 191).
Otto von Habsburg blames the risk that an incompetent might occupy the throne on an inflexible legitimism–preoccupation with a particular dynasty–that displaced safeguards found in most classical monarchies. He recommends that the king be assisted by a body representing the highest judicial authority, a body that could if necessary replace the heir presumptive by the next in line of succession (1958/1970, pp. 262, 264, 266-267).
Consider the one Republican and nine Democrats currently (October 2003) competing for the U.S. presidency. The day after the televised debate among the Democrats in Detroit, Roger Hitchcock, substitute host on a radio talk show, asked: “Would you like to have dinner with any of those people? Would you hire any of them to manage your convenience store?”
“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics” (Sowell 1994).
Compare Lewis and Woolsey (2003): “[O]f the nations that have been democracies for a very long time and show every sign that they will remain so, a substantial majority are constitutional monarchies (the U.S. and Switzerland being the principal exceptions).”