Throughout history, human beings have developed different ways of exercising government, with the most diverse structures and norms. One of them is the monarchy, where the most important position of the State is for life (it is occupied until death) and is designated, generally, through inheritance (power is received from the father or another relative).
The term monarchy comes from the fusion of the Greek terms monos (one) and arkein (power) which means "power concentrated in one." It is distinguished from tyranny and despotism because it implies a legitimate power, unlike these other governments that are characterized by illegality and arbitrariness in the exercise of power. On the other hand, it differs from the republic because there is a close relationship between the power of the king and the exercise of it in the public environment. In the republic there is no inherent power to the people, but whoever exercises it holds a public office.
The one who has the power in a monarchy is the monarch, although according to the legal structure of the government or the region, it can receive different names: king, emperor, tsar, kaiser, etc. The state that is ruled by a monarch can also be called a kingdom, in addition to a monarchy.
There are several types of monarchies. These are the best known, within which there are certain variants:
An authoritarian monarchy is called a government that has powers over a territory, which are based above all on the bureaucracy (taxes, a single army and an economic system managed centrally by the monarch). It was a very common system in ancient times, where the ruler was the King who came from the noble sector of society and whose position was given to him by a hereditary bond. This monarch ruled over the entire town, using the service of vassals and peasants and imposing a mandatory sum of taxes.
There have been monarchs who were just puppets of the most powerful nobles or of the Church, to whom many times they owed economic favors that allowed them to be manipulated by those sectors.
The first authoritarian monarchy that existed was the one established in 1385 by John I in Portugal, of the Avis dynasty. After him came many years of monarchies throughout the European continent.
The characteristics of an absolute monarchy are, a government where the king has the three powers: judicial, executive and legislative. Said representative is based on divine law and power is granted to him in a hereditary way (son of kings). Among the European monarchies the best known monarchy model was the absolutist one imposed by the French.
The hybrid monarchies exist when the steering system is in an intermediate point between an individualistic and absolute monarch, and monarchy governed by a constitution. This means that the king does not have all the power over a territory, although he retains a notable political strength.
These last two regimes, therefore, differ from the absolute monarchy, where the monarch concentrates total power (there is no division of powers and makes decisions on his own, without giving explanations to any legislative chamber or judiciary).
Since always, many monarchs have been consecrated under the divinization of their person. In these cases, the king is considered to be a God or to have been chosen by a higher being. A classic example of this situation is found in Egypt thousands of years ago, when the pharaoh was elevated above mortals.
Currently there are several countries in the world where there is a constitutional monarchy coexisting with other forms of government, mostly democratic. In the cases of countries in Africa and Asia, the role of the ruler is fundamental, in other countries, merely symbolic. In these latter cases, to continue with the tradition of the country, societies have preferred to maintain the monarchy in order not to break with certain customs, although in these cases the essence of these governments had to be modified and the monarchs have lost power. To exemplify this we can mention among others the current monarchies of the United Kingdom, Spain, Denmark and Canada. They are constitutional or parliamentary monarchies, under a democratic systemand sovereignty that is in the hands of the people and where the monarch maintains an especially symbolic and representative role, although he can also act as an arbitrator or consultant.