User blog comment:Scrawland Scribblescratch/From Louis XIV to Palpatine: Absolute Leadership/@comment-1738490-20120916050242

North Korea is an absolute monarchy, the only difference is that the monarch doesn't use a nobility title. It is the same type of absolute monarchy Rome was, officially a republic, but the Head of States is an absolute monarch, who uses a republic title (Princeps Civitas, First Citizen, in Rome's case).

Thailand, aswell as Morocco and we could consider even UK or Luxembourg (contsituconally but not in practice) are semi-constitutional monarchies, where the king has some powers or holds entirely the executive power, as did most monarchies at the start of XX century.

The Vatican is absolute but, come on, whay abuse of power can the Pope do? Could he declare war depending on his mood, torture citizens, outlawing all opposers? An absolute monarch could, but he has no citizens to do so. If anything, the Holy See, the Church, is an absolute monarchy.

About the blog, I would like a weekly section, it could be fun. Machiavelli dedicates various chapters in The Prince to the inherited and acquired principalities, the ways to get them and to keep them.

I supose Louis XIV had the hereditary and divine right things, what made him untouchable for most people, and the manyn periods of war you were talking about helped to keep the people focused on defend the motherland from the outside, and not from the government inside.

Palpatine, insted, had no enemies outside, no rights nor by blood nor by divinity to the throne. He just had his own power, and most the moffs, the liuetunenants, became de facto feudal lords on the governorates they got. This decentralization, the luck of a legitiming tradicional aristocracy (but a dislaked completely new one) and complete focus on the inside where the ingredients of the overthrown soup.

"I'm the state" is just the ultimate declaration of unlimited power "I'm the first of all above people, aristocracy and the Church itself". "I'm the senate" is more conservative, as the power comes just from the ruling body "I'm the first above the aristocracy, the people is nothing and their opinion is not to be listened".