What’s the difference between a monarchy and a dictatorship?
There are both ideological and practical differences. A monarch is head of state explicitly because of his ancestry; further, they tend to go with a hereditary aristocracy explicitly identified as such. (The Soviet nomenklatura was certainly hereditary, but it was not part of the public organisation of the USSR.) A dictator may inherit power from his father, but that’s not the basis of his legitimacy; he is dictator because he “safeguards the revolution” or “leads the Party” or whatever. In fact, monarchies generally speaking don’t have an explicit ideology, unless you count “family X shall retain the throne”; dictatorships have,a least publicly, some sort of theoretical underpinning, whether it’s marxist-leninism, lebensraum for the X race, or Ordnung Muss Sein.
Further, monarchs have, as a general rule, been less obvious about the mailed fist; secret police and censorship certainly occur, but they are not central, obvious features of the regime. They also tend to be less overtly militaristic; note for example that Britain has a Royal Navy and a Royal Air Force, but a British Army. That’s because it descends from the New Model Army, raised by Cromwell to fight for Parliament (against the King) in the Civil War.
Monarchies are also, perhaps, more long-term in their extraction of surplus; shearing the sheep rather than butchering it. A warlord or bandit who expects to be thrown out next year has no incentive to let the peasants keep their seed corn; a monarch who expects to pass his throne to his children will even let them keep enough of their stuff to do long-term improvements like, say, building roads and canals. A dictatorship, I suggest, is usually somewhere between these two extremes. Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monarchies was unusual in a monarchy, but would not stand out in a dictatorship.
ETA: sorry, mixed you up with other commenters. Here’s what’s left of my response:
The original claim was that dictatorships are less stable than monarchies. Your definition of the difference between the two might say that this is because monarchies have stable inheritance rules, while in dictatorships, which don’t, a new dictator is often weak at first. This can topple or amend the dictatorship.
This claim (which you didn’t make) doesn’t convince me, to which I responded (after correcting my comments) in my reply here.
Yes, I was only responding to the question about the difference—I wasn’t making any claims about the stability. It is not really clear that monarchies last all that long; if you look at England, they tend to get a new dynasty every two hundred years, or whatever, usually after a civil war. It’s not obvious that you want to consider this a continuation of the monarchy; you might just as well consider it a new one.
The Roman Empire should probably be classified as a dictatorship, but it didn’t have 200 years without succession violence. The “Five Good Empires” period lasted 100 years, though.
Maybe the Vatican should count as a dictatorship. It has had succession violence, but probably less often than England. But maybe it is too decentralized to count.
There are both ideological and practical differences. A monarch is head of state explicitly because of his ancestry; further, they tend to go with a hereditary aristocracy explicitly identified as such. (The Soviet nomenklatura was certainly hereditary, but it was not part of the public organisation of the USSR.) A dictator may inherit power from his father, but that’s not the basis of his legitimacy; he is dictator because he “safeguards the revolution” or “leads the Party” or whatever. In fact, monarchies generally speaking don’t have an explicit ideology, unless you count “family X shall retain the throne”; dictatorships have,a least publicly, some sort of theoretical underpinning, whether it’s marxist-leninism, lebensraum for the X race, or Ordnung Muss Sein.
Further, monarchs have, as a general rule, been less obvious about the mailed fist; secret police and censorship certainly occur, but they are not central, obvious features of the regime. They also tend to be less overtly militaristic; note for example that Britain has a Royal Navy and a Royal Air Force, but a British Army. That’s because it descends from the New Model Army, raised by Cromwell to fight for Parliament (against the King) in the Civil War.
Monarchies are also, perhaps, more long-term in their extraction of surplus; shearing the sheep rather than butchering it. A warlord or bandit who expects to be thrown out next year has no incentive to let the peasants keep their seed corn; a monarch who expects to pass his throne to his children will even let them keep enough of their stuff to do long-term improvements like, say, building roads and canals. A dictatorship, I suggest, is usually somewhere between these two extremes. Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monarchies was unusual in a monarchy, but would not stand out in a dictatorship.
ETA: sorry, mixed you up with other commenters. Here’s what’s left of my response:
The original claim was that dictatorships are less stable than monarchies. Your definition of the difference between the two might say that this is because monarchies have stable inheritance rules, while in dictatorships, which don’t, a new dictator is often weak at first. This can topple or amend the dictatorship.
This claim (which you didn’t make) doesn’t convince me, to which I responded (after correcting my comments) in my reply here.
Yes, I was only responding to the question about the difference—I wasn’t making any claims about the stability. It is not really clear that monarchies last all that long; if you look at England, they tend to get a new dynasty every two hundred years, or whatever, usually after a civil war. It’s not obvious that you want to consider this a continuation of the monarchy; you might just as well consider it a new one.
Few dictatorships last that long.
Could you please name some that did?
The Roman Empire should probably be classified as a dictatorship, but it didn’t have 200 years without succession violence. The “Five Good Empires” period lasted 100 years, though.
Maybe the Vatican should count as a dictatorship. It has had succession violence, but probably less often than England. But maybe it is too decentralized to count.
Can’t think of any, in fact (which is my point). However, there may be one or two that don’t spring to mind.