Absolute monarchy

Absolute monarchy is a form of monarchical government in which the sovereign exercises unrestricted political authority and functions as the ultimate source of law, decision-making, and state power. In this system the monarch’s authority is not limited by a constitution, representative legislature, or established checks and balances. Although absolute rule has existed in various cultures and civilisations, it reached its most recognisable form in early modern Europe, where it became associated with centralised administration, the decline of feudal structures, and legitimising doctrines such as the divine right of kings.
Historically, absolute monarchy shaped political thought, state formation, and debates over sovereignty. While its influence diminished significantly after the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries due to revolutions, democratic reforms, and changing attitudes toward political legitimacy, it provided the intellectual groundwork for several later conservative and anti-liberal movements.

Characteristics and Principles

Absolute monarchy centres on the concentration of power in the hands of a single ruler. Key features include:

• Unrestricted sovereignty, with the monarch holding legislative, executive, and judicial authority.
• Absence of institutional limits, such as parliamentarian constraints or binding constitutional frameworks.
• Dynastic legitimacy, often justified through hereditary succession.
• Religious or ideological sanction, particularly doctrines affirming divine authority or heavenly mandates.
• Centralised administration, reducing the influence of feudal institutions and traditional nobility.

Although absolute monarchs may be guided by councils, advisors, or customary law, these bodies do not possess binding authority over the ruler.

Development and Decline in Europe

Absolute monarchy flourished in Europe from the seventeenth century, shaped by efforts to consolidate power away from feudal lords and religious authorities. Its high point is often associated with Louis XIV of France, whose long reign exemplified centralised power and the cultural-symbolic authority of the monarchy. The French king concentrated judicial, executive, and legislative functions in his person, and was regarded as the supreme arbiter of law.
In England and Scotland, attempts to introduce continental-style absolutism by James VI and I and Charles I led to political conflict. Charles I’s efforts to govern without Parliament and enforce episcopal forms of church governance contributed to the English Civil War, ending with his execution in 1649.
In Denmark–Norway, absolutism became codified in the 1665 Kongeloven, an early example of a formal written framework granting the monarch total authority. Absolutist rule persisted until constitutional changes in the nineteenth century.
The Habsburg lands also witnessed strong monarchical authority, though influenced by Enlightenment thinking in the case of rulers such as Joseph II, who pursued reforms within an absolutist framework. The dissolution of Austria-Hungary after the First World War brought an end to Habsburg monarchical power.
In Prussia, absolutism developed with a distinct emphasis on the monarch as the “first servant of the state.” Kings such as Frederick the Great combined centralised authority with legal and educational reforms, contributing to the state’s military and bureaucratic strength. Prussian absolutism endured until the revolutions of 1848, after which constitutional structures were established.
Russia maintained autocratic rule longer than most European states. From the reign of Ivan IV to the Romanov dynasty, tsars wielded extensive power. Efforts at modernisation by Peter the Great and Catherine II strengthened central authority. Even after the 1905 Revolution, the monarchy preserved autocratic elements, with the 1906 Constitution continuing to describe the emperor as an autocrat. Russian absolutism finally collapsed during the 1917 revolutions.
While Sweden’s system under Charles XI and Charles XII is often labelled “absolute,” Swedish monarchs were constrained by law and required agreement from the Riksdag to enact legislation, making their system more limited than continental absolutism.
The decline of absolute monarchy across Europe followed major political upheavals including the French Revolution, the Revolutions of 1848, and broader nineteenth- and twentieth-century movements toward constitutionalism and popular sovereignty. By the end of the First World War, most European absolute monarchies had dissolved.

Absolutism Outside Europe

Forms of absolute monarchy have existed in many civilisations beyond Europe. Examples include:

• The Ottoman Empire, where the Sultan exercised supreme authority and held titles suggesting divine sanction, such as “Shadow of God on Earth.”
• Ancient Mesopotamia, where rulers of Assyria, Babylonia, and Sumer conducted governance with unchecked power.
• Imperial China, where emperors ruled under the Mandate of Heaven, a doctrine granting divine legitimacy while permitting dynastic change.
• The Inca Empire, where the Sapa Inca was revered as a descendant of the sun god, Inti, and ruled as the unquestioned sovereign.
• Korea under the Joseon dynasty and the short-lived Korean Empire, both of which were structured around absolute monarchical authority.

These systems typically combined political centralisation with religious, cosmological, or ancestral justifications for sovereignty.

Contemporary Absolute Monarchies

A number of modern states continue to operate as absolute monarchies. In these countries the monarch retains extensive executive authority, and constitutional limitations are minimal or absent. Present-day examples include:

• Brunei
• Eswatini
• Oman
• Saudi Arabia
• Vatican City
• The individual emirates of the United Arab Emirates, which collectively form a federal monarchy.

Although some of these systems may possess consultative councils or legal documents describing governance structures, these bodies do not meaningfully restrict the ruler’s authority.

Absolutism and Political Ideology

Even after its decline as a dominant form of governance, absolute monarchy provided a conceptual basis for several nineteenth- and early twentieth-century ideological movements. Traditionalist groups such as Legitimists and Carlists defended hereditary monarchical claims against liberal constitutional reforms. Later nationalistic or authoritarian movements drew upon elements of absolutist theory to justify strong central authority and scepticism toward democratic governance.