Delivering Stability—Primogeniture and Autocratic Survival in European Monarchies 1000–1800

Abstract

Despite being the probably most common form of political rule in history, monarchies remain understudied in terms of how constitutional arrangements affect leader survival. In this paper, we examine if the principle of succession mattered for the risk that a king or queen would be deposed in Europe, 1000-1800. Specifically, we draw on the work of Gordon Tullock, who argued that hereditary succession orders increases the chances of survival for dictators. The proposed reason is that a crown prince constitutes a natural focal point for the ruling elite, which makes it easier for them to avoid costly power struggles. Furthermore, crown princes are generally much younger than other challengers, and can thus afford to wait for the current king to die or abdicate peacefully. The hypothesis is tested on a new dataset, and the results show that the risk of deposition was several times higher in European monarchies not practicing primogeniture. Moreover, the spread of primogeniture to a large extent explains why the risk of deposition became dramatically lower in Europe during the period of study. Acknowledgments:The authors would like to thank Andreas Bågenholm, Agnes Cornell, Mikael Gilljam, Sören Holmberg, Victor Lapuente, Anna Persson, Steven Pincus, Martin Sjöstedt and Susan Stokes as well as seminar participants at the QoG institute for valuable comments on earlier drafts of the paper.

Inheritance regimes: Medieval family structures and current institutional quality

“…Acharya and Lee (2017) show that the availability of male heirs made the succession smoother in medieval Europe, and that the resulting stability has had a positive effect on contemporary institutional quality and economic development. The effect primarily worked via the institution of political primogeniture (i.e., the practice of letting the oldest son inherit the throne)-a factor that has also been shown to increase political stability in other research (Kokkonen & Sundell, 2014. To account for the stabilizing effect of political primogeniture we construct a variable based on Kokkonen and Sundell (2014), which measures the fraction of years a region was ruled by polities with political primogeniture between the year 1000 and the year 1500.…”

Strategic gerontocracy: why nondemocratic systems produce older leaders

“…7 Second, in many (but not all) monarchies, institutional procedures, such as passing the crown to the monarch's oldest child, automatically select the new leader: in those cases, strategic gerontocracy does not appear because no one has a say in the selection of the new ruler. Note, however, that although hereditary succession can allow very young leaders to claim power, the gradual institutionalization of primogeniture during the Middle Age (see Kokkonen and Sundell 2014) can be viewed as an attempt to implement strategic gerontocracy within the more general framework of hereditary succession. Indeed, while hereditary succession is known to have stabilizing functions (Tullock 1987;Kurrild-Klitgaard 2000;Kokkonen and Sundell 2014), it is less obvious why the specific institution of primogeniture was so widespread among European monarchies.…”

“…Note, however, that although hereditary succession can allow very young leaders to claim power, the gradual institutionalization of primogeniture during the Middle Age (see Kokkonen and Sundell 2014) can be viewed as an attempt to implement strategic gerontocracy within the more general framework of hereditary succession. Indeed, while hereditary succession is known to have stabilizing functions (Tullock 1987;Kurrild-Klitgaard 2000;Kokkonen and Sundell 2014), it is less obvious why the specific institution of primogeniture was so widespread among European monarchies. The theory we propose might explain why priority frequently was given to the oldest son and virtually never to the monarch's youngest child: whereas the second option would have had the advantage of delivering more stability by delaying the incumbent monarch's death and the possible succession crises it could bring about, that solution had the drawback of lengthening his expected tenure in office.…”

The Structure of the Executive in Authoritarian and Democratic Regimes: Regime Dimensions Across the Globe, 1900-2014

“…The clearest instances are of course that of inheritance of the throne in monarchies, either through primogeniture (from father to son) or agnatic seniority (from brother to eldest brother) (Brownlee 2007;Kokkonen & Sundell 2014), but a decision within the royal family, as is typically practiced in today's Gulf monarchies, also counts as hereditary succession as long as bloodline to the former chief executive is the primary principles invoked in the succession order (Herb 1999). The historically quite common practice of electing kings (think of the Holy Roman Empire, for example) highlights the fact that monarchies are not necessarily based on hereditary succession (Kokkonen & Sundell 2014); the hereditary principle is thus narrower and more specific than the monarchical regime type. Military force: The principle of military force, or the military principle for short, is invoked whenever the appointment or the dismissal of the executive is based on the threatened or actual use of force (Nordlinger 1977, 2).…”