The Monarchy and the Constitution

✍ Scribed by Vernon Bogdanor

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 341
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In the increasingly questioning world of the 1990s, the role of the monarchy in a democracy is again coming under scrutiny. Its critics argue that the monarchy is a profoundly conservative institution which serves to inhibit social change; that it has outlived its usefulness; that it symbolizes and reinforces deference and hierarchy; and that its radical reform is therefore long overdue. Rejecting these arguments, Vernon Bogdanor makes a powerful case for the positive role that monarchy plays in modern democratic politics. Ranging across law, politics, and history he argues that far from undermining democracy, the monarchy sustains and strengthens democratic institutions; that constitutional monarchy is a form of government that ensures not conservatism but legitimacy. The first serious examination of the political role of the monarchy to appear in many years, this book will make fascinating reading for all those interested in the monarchy and the future of British politics.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 12
1. The Evolution of Constitutional Monarchy......Page 14
2. The Basic Constitutional Rules: The Rules of Succession......Page 55
3. The Basic Constitutional Rules: Influence and the Prerogative......Page 74
4. The Appointment of a Prime Minister......Page 97
5. Three Constitutional Crises......Page 126
6. Hung Parliaments and Proportional Representation......Page 158
7. The Financing of the Monarchy......Page 196
8. The Sovereign's Private Secretary......Page 210
9. The Sovereign and the Church......Page 228
10. The Sovereign and the Commonwealth......Page 253
11. The Future of Constitutional Monarchy......Page 311
1. Sovereigns since Henry VIII......Page 323
2. British prime ministers since 1782......Page 324
3. Private secretaries since 1870......Page 326
4. Member states of the Commonwealth, 1995......Page 327
5. Some constitutional episodes involving the use of royal power since 1900......Page 329
Select Bibliography......Page 331
C......Page 336
D......Page 337
H......Page 338
M......Page 339
T......Page 340
Z......Page 341