King Charles and Queen Camilla stand on the balcony of Buckingham Palace after their coronation in London on May 6, 2023.
(Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)
Canadians should learn the lessons of the U.S. and the U.K. to avoid idealizing a republic with a powerful president and at the same time acknowledge that a constitutional monarchy is no alternative.
Then-Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles visiting Canada in 2017. As a new monarch is crowned in Britain, is it time for Canada to have a head of state who is Canadian?
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
If the prime minister is right, and New Zealand’s ties to the monarchy will only strengthen under Charles III, the country will be swimming against the Commonwealth tide.
The move to a republic has been gathering pace for many years.
King Letsie III of Lesotho. Frustration with politicians has led to a rise in popularity of the monarchy in recent times.
CChris Jackson via Getty Images
The protests, which have lasted for weeks, have become embroiled with deep anxieties in France about decolonisation, policing, the limits to secularism and the place of Muslims in French society.
The Queen meets her representative in Barbados, Dame Sandra Mason, at Windsor Castle.
Steve Parsons/PA Archive
In the midst of our present crisis, this week’s release of the Palace letters has taken us back to the debate about another crisis, massive at the time and of lasting significance but rather put into perspective…
In the face of rising protest, Venezuela’s government has called on the military to squelch dissent.
Efecto Eco /Wikimedia
Venezuela’s opposition has called a 48-hour strike to stop the Maduro government from rewriting the nation’s constitution. But grassroots democracy may not be able to save the Bolivarian Republic.
Donald Horne saw Australia as a country that had got lucky, but was squandering its luck.
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Donald Horne saw Australia as a lucky country that was squandering its luck. His bold ideas captured the nation’s imagination. But being a public intellectual is no longer easy. Who will come up with the next grand ideas?
Queen Elizabeth II meets with Australian Defence Force personnel and veterans at the Australian War Memorial in 2011.
Graham Tidy/AAP
As Australians once found spiritual communion through allegiance to the British monarch, they find similar virtues in Anzac today. Can the republican movement connect with a large enough number of people in a similar way?
Anarchists once took constitutionalism very seriously and might well do so again to develop radical decision-making practices.
Kim Davis/flickr
If anarchists reject private property and the state, they need to devise alternative, radical practices of power-sharing. Republican constitutionalism offers one way to think about this.
The tradition of republicanism offered us civil religion, a foundation of belief that could counter any politics or policy that demands sacrifice in this world to be compensated in some “beyond”.
It’s best for Spain. But can Felipe revitalise the monarchy?
EPA/Hugo Ortuno
The Spanish monarchy has been thrown into crisis after the king, Juan Carlos I, announced his decision to abdicate the throne after 39 years in favour of his son Felipe. The news was conveyed via the royal…