Joseph Nye Lauds Power of Monarchy
The newest passenger on the Windsor birth bandwagon comes from the American republic. It’s political scientist and Harvard professor Joseph Nye, writing in a Financial Times article that “For better or worse, the monarchy still matters in global politics”.
Professor Nye referred enthusiastically to the “soft power”, which he describes as “the ability to produce outcomes through attraction rather than coercion or payment”, that he believes is increased by the UK monarchy. The fascination of the millions who gawped at the Windsor baby somehow increase Britain’s ability to get what it wants in the world, it seems.
Nye dismisses the case against monarchy, which his own country found very persuasive at its founding, with the simple statement that “this raises constitutional and political issues that go far beyond soft power”. He refers to what we have in Britain as “the democratic remains of a once hierarchical monarchy” without explanation as to how the feudal privileges of the Windsor clan can be understood as unhierarchical. The professor both understates and dismisses the financial cost to taxpayers of supporting the Windsors in their uniquely expensive way of life.Joseph Nye Lauds Power of Monarchy
Notably lacking are any instances of how the soft power of monarchy has helped Britain in global politics. It would be hard indeed to demonstrate that Britain has been able to get Iran, Syria, Israel, the European Union or the United States to more often do as it wishes simply because some of the people of these countries may enjoy watching the Windsors on TV from time to time.
And Britain is one of the most heavily armed nations in Europe and one of only two with nuclear weapons. So it seems that hard power is rather more important for Britain than it is in the countries that lack its supposed soft power.
There is very little to show that the international attraction of the British monarchy goes beyond a fascination with “royal” celebrities and spectacles. It has not had the same power to influence the young throughout the world that American popular culture has had. Digestive biscuits have not have not produced the same world-wide enthusiasm as Coca Cola! And the Windsor family as family is less of a good model than the American Obama family, to say the least.
The professor wrote that “if one’s objective is to foster democracy or human rights, soft power may be more effective”. But Britain’s totality of feudal institutions and practices certainly do not provide a model that any other country has or would want to follow. What the monarchy and its associated institutions, including hereditary legislators, a state church and the disenfranchisement of republicans, seem more likely to do is provide an excuse to those regimes that also like to dispense with some of the important details of democratic government and society. In Iran you cannot run for president if you are considered disloyal to the Islamic system. In Britain you cannot sit in parliament if you are unable to proclaim your loyalty to the monarchy.
In the USA there is a saying that something is “good enough for government”, that is to say not very good at all. Professor Nye may be said to have written that monarchy is “good enough for Britain”. He would not want it at home, one can be sure, but you cannot expect the Brits to have the same standards.
Nye once wrote that “at some point, consequences matter”. Britain’s feudal institutions have consequences for the people of this country and they matter too. But they are not the ones that the professor proclaims.