Monarchy is always, always always better?
New Zealand Republic campaigns for a New Zealand citizen as our head of state because we believe that is the best way forward for our country. We don’t make claims such as a republic is always the best form of government for every country. Every country chooses its own path, ideally in a democratic way. We should always be sceptical of any political ideology that claims to be absolute and always correct - including that monarchy is always, always, always better.
Back in 2015, an article by Dylan Matthews appeared on Vox arguing “Why monarchies are better than republics”. It’s cited with great frequency whenever a New Zealand head of state is debated, mainly because it has pretty graphs and cites academics and has an argument that (sort of) flows.
It also has a number of flaws that, once you take a closer look, mean that the claim that monarchy is always better just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Allow me to go through these flaws one by one…
New Zealand’s system is best
The first point to make though is that not much of the article is actually applicable to New Zealand. In fact, in another article by the same author, praising New Zealand’s democracy, he states (while defending the monarchy):
“New Zealand would already top the list of best political systems
even if it were a republic.”
While in law (de jure) New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy, in fact (de facto), our government is “republican”, right up to our de facto head of state, the governor-general. That means any claims about the monarch’s neutrality or wisdom or whatever simply don’t apply in New Zealand. We know that the Monarch has almost no function when it comes to New Zealand’s head of state, the work is all done by the governor-general, or when they’re not available, their deputy, the Administrator of Government.
The idea central to the Vox article is that a monarch no greater “democratic legitimacy,” because he or she is not subject to the political process or a member of a political party. But what if the monarch is absent, and in his or her place the Prime Minister, leader of the party or parties with the most seats in the democratically-elected parliament, effectively appoints a head of state in their place? Yes, of course, the governor-general is de jure the monarch’s representative and is not head of state. But we know from former governors-general that they have little contact with the monarch.
The Vox article lumps governors-general and monarchs together as if they are exactly the same thing. And yes, on the surface they are; governors-general are “vice roy” - basically vice king or queen, with all the same powers. The article argues that parliamentary democracies such as ours require heads of state “to serve as a disinterested arbiter when there are disputes about how to form a government”. No dispute there. But it then adds that monarchs are more effective than presidents because they are lacking “any semblance of legitimacy.” The article states an unelected monarch or governor-general is less likely to indulge in “shenanigans” which undermine democracy than elected or appointed heads of state because they don’t want to get involved in “domestic politics”.
Matthews cites an American academic who says: “Monarchs can truly be above politics. They usually have no party connections and have not been involved in daily politics before assuming the post of the head of state." They cite the Australian example of the dismissal in 1975, oddly, as an example of this not happening “made it clear such behavior would not be tolerated”. No, it made it clear that Australia had to change the rules of how deceased senators could be replaced, which they did by constitutional amendment in 1977. Fortunately, this example (not counted in the pretty graph above) also comes in handy when you look at how Matthews has measured the claim. More on that below!
The absence of the monarch, represented by a de facto head of state in the governor-general, and democratic form of our government means that New Zealand is a de facto republic. Becoming a republic means transitioning the office of governor-general to our actual head of state.
The Governor-General as de facto head of state
The problem, in New Zealand’s case, is that with the governor-general, that is not true. Even if we accept that a monarch can be “above politics”, a debatable position, the claim that a governor-general can be (or is much more likely to be) is an even greater stretch.
Since New Zealanders have held the office of governor-general (starting in 1967 with Sir Arthur Porritt) we had a number of appointments with clear political links, and plenty of others with some not so clear political links. Former National Prime Minister Keith Holyoake and former Labour Mayor of Auckland Cath Tizard both held the office despite their partisan backgrounds; they had clear links to political parties.
Both Holyoake and Tizard had to exercise judgments following closely-fought elections. What if the 1978 or 1993 elections - which saw first-term governments scrape home despite a majority of voters probably wanting to eject them - had ended just a little bit differently? Imagine hung Parliaments with National and Labour tied on seats, with the balance of power held by parties with no clear preference for either of the big two. It’s entirely plausible.
Would it really have been tolerable in such situations for the Governor-General to be Holyoake or Tizard? What damage would have been done to our democracy if they’d been seen to put their thumbs on the scale for the party that appointed them? The reality is that both Holyoake and Tizard acted within the well-understood rules of their office, whether written or unwritten.
That study…
Matthews also cites an Cambridge University study which found that “presidents, whether elected indirectly by parliament or directly by the people, are likelier to allow governments to change without new elections than monarchs are.”
There are two issues with this study: first, it only uses evidence from only Europe (a fact critically not mentioned in the Vox article), not the whole democratic world. That oddly then excludes most of the Commonwealth (except for Malta and Cyrpus). The reason for this appears to be that the study is, in fact, a comparison of democracy in “old” Europe with “new” Europe, a subject popular in the decades since the end of the cold war. And to that end, the study does its job, apparently showing that countries of the former Soviet bloc are not as good at this democratic government thing than their western counterparts. Shocking I know!
This focus on Europe means, oddly, that the Australian dismissal of 1975 panned by Matthews isn’t actually counted in the graph. If it was, it would be counted as a change of government with a new election. Although, of course, it wasn’t really - the governor-general sacked the existing government and replaced it with a caretaker government, which passed the budget bills being held up in Australia’s upper house, then advised the governor-general to call an election.
Which is exactly why the graph is nonsense. The Cambridge University study refers to data, whereas the graph has been generated from it. As with the Australian dismissal, you can’t actually quantify the actions of a monarch, governor-general or president in the way the graph appears to present it.
Secondly, this “rule” would not necessarily hold up if you isolated for other important variables like constitutional rules around government formation and voting systems. There are plenty of examples even within the Commonwealth of the rules for government formation and dissolution varying. In New Zealand and Australia, the rules are not codified but are generally well understood. This isn’t the rule for everywhere in the Commonwealth though. In Jamaica, for example, the governor-general is subject to highly prescriptive rules under the Jamaican constitution. Likewise for republics; in Malta, the rules are a lot looser, in Portugal they’re highly prescriptive. This is without evening looking at electoral systems and the shifting coalitions they cause.
While Vox is entertaining reading, it falls short. As a general rule, when we’re dealing with absolutes in ideological bents, we should be wary.