Does a country need a head of state?

Question

Several Western-European countries are monarchies (Belgium, United Kingdom, Netherlands). All these countries have from time to time some discussion on if this system should be kept. So far, the side that wants to get rid of the monarchy is always a minority.

One of the arguments to get rid of kings is that they cost a lot of money. A common counter-argument is that a president may cost more money, because then you also need elections. But I never understand why the king/queen should be replaced by a president, isn't it easiest to have no head of state?

(there are more arguments on both sides, but I focus on the one I don't understand)

What would go wrong if the UK would make the royals ordinary citizens, and don't create a new elected position? (Obviously some laws that involve the king have to be changed, but can't all powers/duties be distributed between parliament and prime Minister?)

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I seem to struggle to get the question across. I think I am missing something about the concept that is so obvious for others. Please interpret the question in the simplest way possible, like it was asked by a five-year old. Complex political or economic knowledge might be needed to understand the answer, but not to understand the question.

Here are some types of answers I could imagine:

• The United Nation rules say that you need a head of state. A country can eliminate the position, but then it would be thrown out of the UN, which practically prevents a country from doing so.
• The country of Oilystan refuses to trade with countries without a head of state, so countries are economically pressured to have a head of state.
• In case of unexpected events that kill everyone in the government, a country benefits from having a head of state with a sufficiently long line of succession, so there is somebody to restart the system.
• No, a country does not need a head of state, but countries have one because of tradition.

Answer 1

The question could be understood in several ways:

• Are kings and other ceremonial heads of state strictly necessary for the functioning of the institutions of their country? They typically retain a role so changes would be needed but that's not insurmountable. The Netherlands provides a model in this respect: the country still has a king of course but it recently transferred one of its only subtantive function (naming a formateur) to the parliament itself.

• Is it necessary to have separate offices for the head of state and the head of government? Clearly not: for better or for worse, the US and numerous Latin American governments have conflated both functions in one person. That doesn't seem to be what you have in mind however.

• Can you dispense entirely with the notion of a single person leading and representing the state in some way? That's more difficult but one country that comes close would be Switzerland. The country does have a head of state, on a one-year rolling basis among the members of the federal council. That person assumes in particular all the diplomatic functions of a head of state but has no preeminence over the other members of the council.

Ultimately, the answer would then appear to be yes, it is possible to dispense with a monarch without necessarily creating an elected position to replace it, either by gradually redefining and distributing its functions to existing institutions while retaining the current nature of the regime (the Netherlands) or creating a completely different kind of constitution (Switzerland).

Note that in Europe, many countries (Germany, Portugal, Italy) went another way: they have a parliamentary system where a president basically assumes the role of the monarch in constitutional monarchy but is not elected directly by the people (s/he is elected by some sort of electoral college based on earlier elections). An indirect election (e.g. by parliament) would not necessarily entail the same dramatic political consequences and the costs you worry about.

Answer 2

There is little doubt that a nation needs a head of government. The role of a head of state may be filled by the head of government or another person. There are plenty of states which merge the two positions. There are some good arguments why the two roles should be split, but checks and balances can be created by other means.

Answer 3

You need a head of state to have quick conversations and relations with other entities during times of crisis or issues where you need a quick response to other parties. That being said, you don't literally need a single head of state. Look at Switzerland, for example, where the President of the Swiss Confederation has six other councilors of equal authority, creating a situation where there are technically 7 heads of state to negotiate with depending on the pressing issue happening within or outside of the country that needs to be discussed.

Answer 4

A country doesn’t need a head of state, but it can be useful to have one. As an example:

The German Bundespräsident is the head of state. Officially he or she is the number 1 in the leadership of the state, with the Bundeskanzler coming officially second. In reality, it’s the Bundeskanzler who makes the decisions.

So what does the Bundespräsident do? He or she is there when someone must be there to officially represent Germany. Say some foreign head of state died and someone from Germany must attend the funeral then the send the Bundespräsident. He is officially number 1 in Germany, and it leaves the Bundeskanzler to keep running the country. I suppose in the USA they might send the Vice President for that kind of job. But the Vice President is number 2 in the USA, not the number one, so sending the Bundespräsident is better.

But he has one bigger job: He is the conscience of the government. If the government does something wrong, it’s the Bundespräsidents job to give them a telling off. From Bundeskanzler downward they all have to listen to him. He can’t force anyone to do anything, but being told by the Bundespräsident that you messed up isn’t good for your reputation.

Answer 5

In a democratic country heads of government come and go and you need a permanent head of state to make sure the the constitution is adhered to.

For, example, in the United Kingdom there is a convention that the Prime Minister can only continue so long as they have the support of a majority of the House of Commons.

The voting system in the UK ("first past the post") is such that usually one political party will have an overall majority in the House of Commons and, in that case, obviously the Queen appoints the leader of that party as Prime Minster.

But occasionally no party has an overall majority and in that case the Queen has to decide who to appoint as PM. Whoever she appoints will have to negotiate with other parties to see if agreement can be reached about a coalition (or some kind of support agreement falling short of a coalition). If the appointed PM can't reach an agreement and so does not have the support of a majority of the HoC then, of course, the PM will offer their resignation and then the Queen will have to appoint someone else as PM to see if they can get the support of the HoC. But someone has to make the initial decision as to who gets to have the first try at forming a government and you need a non-political head of state (the Queen in the case of the UK) to do this.

Mostly a head of state is a formal ceremonial role but occasionally they need to make actual constitutional decisions.

If a UK prime minster loses (or never gains) the confidence of the HoC then the constitutional convention is that they have to offer their resignation (or call an election). If they failed to do that then the Queen would have to dismiss them. I am not aware of this ever happening in the UK but something similar happened in Australia in 1975

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis

Essentially the Australian PM lost the support of the legislature but refused to resign or call an election. To put pressure on the PM to resign the legislature refused to vote money for the payment of public servants. So the country was faced with the possibility of chaos if public servants (police, army etc.) were not paid. The Governor General (Queen's representative but for all practical purposes head of state of Australia) dismissed the PM and appointed the apposition leader PM after having extracted a promise by him to (1) call an immediate election and (2) not to change any government policy before the election.

Answer 6

The advantage of having a Head of State is that there is a single person to turn to when issues arise. That's not always essential, but in crises or rapidly developing events — natural disasters, invasions, catastrophes, etc. — having a single person with the capacity to make quick decisions and rapidly organize resources is useful. Deliberative bodies are slow, contentious, and not what one wants to rely on when the flood waters are rising.

The disadvantage of having a Head of State is that any given person in that role might be short-sighted, lazy, corrupt, greedy, malicious, or just plain incompetent, and having someone like that in charge can be worse than having no one in charge at all. Again, if the flood waters are rising, you don't want to have to rely on someone who might demand a thousand dollar bribe before he mounts a rescue operation.

The general solution since the Enlightenment has been to create qualified Heads of State: people who have executive authority over the nation in order to make certain collective decisions for that nation, but whose authority is bounded and limited in various ways to prevent him from misusing or frittering away that power. Thus, the US president can create agreements with foreign governments — something that's comparatively quick and easy for two Heads of State to work out between themselves — but any such agreements then have to be consented to by Congress in a slower, more deliberative process. Likewise, the US president can take military action to protect the nation, but (ostensibly, though this hasn't been the case in recent decades) must justify his actions to Congress and seek their approval before any conflict becomes prolonged.

Unless a nation were extremely small, it would be difficult for it to function efficiently without some kind of Head of State. Foreign nations would not know whom to turn to for diplomatic discussions; different factions or agencies would operate independently and at cross purposes; Every decision, no matter how time-sensitive, would have to grind its way though a prolonged deliberative process. There have been cases where the putative 'Head' is not an individual but a small cabal: a junta, an oligarchy, an aristocracy... Perhaps the closest historical example is the ancient Greek polity model (what we call Athenian Democracy), but even that was an oligarchy of land-owning citizens with a strong class system, such that real political clout rested in a small cohort. The ethics of governance might call for power to be distributes broadly and evenly across a society, because that strikes most of us as fair. However, the pragmatics of running a large collective community call for some centralization of power — at least concerning certain kinds of necessities — in the hands of someone who can take quick, decisive action. There's a balancing between the New England town hall and the rule of the tyrant's that isn't easy to strike.

Answer 7

In 2000, when Tony Blair was Prime Minister there was a fuel tanker-driver strike, which for complicated reasons was actually supported by the major oil companies - or at least they did nothing to stop it. (Outside oil refineries picketing lorry drivers were supplied with cups of tea and bacon sandwiches.) Both sides were trying to force the government to reduce the tax take on fuel.

At one point very few fuel stations had any supply and goods were going short in supermarkets. Hospitals were in danger of having to close.

Blair went to the Queen to obtain an Order in Council to allow him to use soldiers to shift oil. Immediately granted the strike caved in in days, and before any squaddie commandeered an oil tanker. Blair retained public support throughout.

Had there been no Head of State, who might have granted such an extra-parliamentary order? Indeed who, other than the Queen, would have been trusted sufficiently by British people to exercise absolute power in such a crisis?

Answer 8

Short answer: Yes, a country needs a head of state.

Long answer: Yes, a country needs a head of state in the sense that if a country's government organizes itself into a hierarchical structure, an entity has to inevitably be positioned at the top.

There is, however, no specification for the exact configuration for the position. Currently, there are several versions:

1. Monarchy: The head of state is an individual who acquires the office by hereditary principle. Examples include Untied Kingdom, Japan, Saudi Arabia, etc.

2. Presidency: The head of state is an individual elected by popular vote or a deliberative body (i.e. legislature, citizen assembly). They have to be subjected to regular elections, at least notionally. Examples include United States, Germany, China, etc.

3. Collective body: The head of state is an office held by more than one person at any given time, usually elected by similar mechanism as the presidential model. Examples include Switzerland and San Marino.

Note, the title of head of state only tells you that they are the highest representative of a country, it doesn't tell you how much power they actually wield within their respective political systems. But their existence are quite important in terms of maintaining an interoperable diplomatic protocol. It helps to have an universal model for countries to know how to communicate with each other.