Which royalty is the most impressive?

Nations which have never had any form of "royalty"

• Of the countries listed in the CIA World Factbook (www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook), which are the ones which have never had national governments that were not popularly elected, and what are the ages of these nations? In the event of a gray area (in you opinion), include the country and its age, along with a comment about why the listing might be questionable. For instance, the USA has had several non-popularly (non majority) elected presidents because of the electoral college; so there's some gray, though not much.

• Answer:

  Dear Evan0, There are several ways to approach your question. If you're interested, I made a list of each country's type of regime and rulers (including traditional and pre-colonial rulers). However, when considering this list carefully, one notices that almost each country of the world belongs to one of the following categories (if not more): (1) Is currently a monarchy (or, like Canada or Australia, officially recognises a monarch as the supreme sovreign, even if practially it has no meaning). (2) Was a monarchy and became a republic (3) Was part of a larger monarchy/empire (most notably, part of the Spanish, Ottoman, Portuguese, Dutch and British empires) (4) Cosists of cultures and people who had monarcy before the colonialisation by European powers (most notably, post colonial French colonies). (5) Justifies its exitance and right of independence/self decleration in a historical kingdom, which is supposedly related to that country (examples: Croatia - no independent Croatian kingdom since 11th century; Israel - no idependent "Israelite" kingdom since Greek and Roman occupations; etc.) This is also logical - since monarchy is considered to be one of the oldest forms of organisation, every people that is settled, and moved on from the hunters-gatherer step, has some form of traditional (non elected) leader. Since modern states do not consist (at least not solely) of hunters-gatherers, they maintain some form of monarchy in their collective past, or in the past of the groups that consist that "nation" (since in the post colonial world, it is hard to talk of a "nation", for example, in the Nigerian case). Saying that, there are several lists that provide us with information on the times of democratisation, and therefore, on the nations which were democratic "non-stop". I am basing myself on Samuel Huntington's theory on "waves of Democracy" (The Third Wave: Democratization in the late twentieth century). The first countries to democratise in the 19th century were Australia Canada, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, U.K. and the U.S. Of those, Australia, New Zealans, Canada, and of course the UK, are officially subjected to the British Monarch. Finland was subjected to the Swedish monarchs and later to the Russian Czars. Iceland was subjected to the Danish royals, and actually had its own until 1944. Sweden is a Constitutional Monarchy. Which leaves us with Switzerland (1848, full democracy, including women, only in 1971) and the US (1776; 1919 partial voting rights to native Americans; 1920 to women; until the 1960s Native Americans, African Americans and other minorities - notably Asian Americans - were discriminated in various "literacy tests"). As you mentioned before, in five cases, the popular vote was not compatible to the electoral college vote. See also http://www.campvishus.org/PresPartyShare.htm Chile, democratic since 1987, belongs to a secodn type. It is democratic since the first wave of democracy, and its monarchial heritage sums up to the Spanish colonial heritage, but it was couped in 1973 by Augusto Pinochet. Many other countries democratised in the years 1826-1926, but later loss that democracy and regained it only after the Second World War. Among these countries: Austria, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands and Norway. Of these, Austria was a centre of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; Belgim, Japan, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway are all constitutional monarcies. Germany, Italy and France had their own monarchies, but became republics. germany itself is of course fully democratised only after 1991, when both parts of the country are democratic. Colombia, a former Spanish colony, is the only one left, but it is a highly breakable democracy, and in the midst of a civil war. Few more countries, which were democratised during the 19th century, are Argentina, Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak Republics), Greece, Hungary and Uruguay. Of them, Argentina (dem, since 1983) and Uruguay have only the colonial heritage of the Spaniarsds, but then again - they are very shakey democracies. Greece, Hungary and the Czech and Slovak Republics were democratised in the last 20 years, but had monarchial heritage (Czech Republic - Roughly coextensive with today's Czech Republic were the "Lands of the Crown of St. Wenceslas," over which the emperor of Austria (until 1867 a purely dynastic, rather than territorial, title) ruled in his capacity as king of Bohemia and, subsidiarily, margrave of Moravia and duke of Upper and Lower Silesia. http://www.rulers.org/ruld.html"). Estonia, democratic sicne 1992, could be also added to the list of countries who have a very faint history of monarchy, it never had a royalty according to http://www.rulers.org/rule.html#estonia. Botswana, Gambia, Israel, Jamaica, Malaysia, Malta, Sri Lanka, Trinidad & Tobago, Venezuela - were all democratised during the Second Wave. Of them, Israel is the only one that could be considered as having no monarchial tradition, through it relates to the Judean and Israelite Biblical rule. Other countries still adhere (officially) to the British monarch, or had some sort of monarchial rulers in the past. Another grey case, similar to Israel, is Botswana, democratic since independence in 1966, that has traditional leaders, but its leaders are democratically elected. In other words, you can see very little number of countries in your list, because most countries were historically part of monarchy, or relate to a historical kingdom. Very few countries are democratic in the Western sense for a long time now, so it is also hard to judge from this angel. I hope that helped and answered your question. I'd be pleased to answer any clarification you may need. My search strategy was to search for each country, with words such as "democratizetion", "monarchy" or "king".