Monarchies have been at a competitive disadvantage versus republics throughout the modern military period. London defeated King Charles because they were better organized for war. Meanwhile, across the Channel, the Dutch republic defeated the Spanish monarchy, being better organized for war. The French state developed as an absolute monarchy in reaction to republicanism and responsive to military revolution, but its inefficiencies proved to be its downfall. Levee en masse and conscription armies, the burgeoning nationalism of the Victorian "golden age," industrialization, etc -- when it all came to a head after 1914, the monarchies mostly could not compete with republics, which were more flexible and efficient at war, so the monarchies largely disappeared, and Fukuyama patted himself on the back that History had reached an end.
As you note, there is something about humans that makes us want a king or queen to rule us, and I would even add that it explains much about the nature of celebrity in our time. North Korea and Syria both claim to be republics, but resemble hereditary monarchies enough to bolster that argument. Contra Fukuyama, there is no intrinsic force within capital-H History that prevents monarchy from ever making a comeback. Think about how much science fiction depicts royalism in the far future. But first, a monarch will have to put together the various human and technological infrastructures needed to overturn the republican advantage in warmaking.
We could also mention the Austrian Habsburgs. Up to the fall of the empire in 1918 the Habsburgs presided over a cosmopolitan society that allowed for tremendous integration of Jews and other groups. The collapse of the empire and retreat to provincial nationalism left minority groups in suddenly precarious positions with disastrous outcomes 25 years later.
Am I going to be the first annoying person to point out that, thanks to King Mswati III's 50th-anniversary-of-independence renaming, Swaziland is now Eswatini?
Monarchies have been at a competitive disadvantage versus republics throughout the modern military period. London defeated King Charles because they were better organized for war. Meanwhile, across the Channel, the Dutch republic defeated the Spanish monarchy, being better organized for war. The French state developed as an absolute monarchy in reaction to republicanism and responsive to military revolution, but its inefficiencies proved to be its downfall. Levee en masse and conscription armies, the burgeoning nationalism of the Victorian "golden age," industrialization, etc -- when it all came to a head after 1914, the monarchies mostly could not compete with republics, which were more flexible and efficient at war, so the monarchies largely disappeared, and Fukuyama patted himself on the back that History had reached an end.
As you note, there is something about humans that makes us want a king or queen to rule us, and I would even add that it explains much about the nature of celebrity in our time. North Korea and Syria both claim to be republics, but resemble hereditary monarchies enough to bolster that argument. Contra Fukuyama, there is no intrinsic force within capital-H History that prevents monarchy from ever making a comeback. Think about how much science fiction depicts royalism in the far future. But first, a monarch will have to put together the various human and technological infrastructures needed to overturn the republican advantage in warmaking.
We could also mention the Austrian Habsburgs. Up to the fall of the empire in 1918 the Habsburgs presided over a cosmopolitan society that allowed for tremendous integration of Jews and other groups. The collapse of the empire and retreat to provincial nationalism left minority groups in suddenly precarious positions with disastrous outcomes 25 years later.
Am I going to be the first annoying person to point out that, thanks to King Mswati III's 50th-anniversary-of-independence renaming, Swaziland is now Eswatini?