What’s the Cure for Ailing Nations? More Kings and Queens, Monarchists Say
Count Tolstoy took over in the mid-1980s, and says the current members are "sensible, run-of-the-mill
people." Count Tolstoy has written books on ancient and postwar British history.
that They think that modern forms of government are superior and have trouble accepting that monarchies have advantages.
Instead, his group advocates constitutional monarchies, in which a king or queen is head of state
and the real power rests with an elected Parliament — much like those in Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain (although demonstrators in 2014 demanded a referendum on the Spanish royal family after King Juan Carlos abdicated).
But Sean L. Yom, a political-science professor at Temple University who studies Middle Eastern governments, said
that stability might be fleeting: With some of those monarchies propped up by oil money rather than a love of any royal family, "monarchies are on their way out," Mr. Yom said.
It is corrupt and secretive." The group has a clear mandate: "We want to see the monarchy abolished
and the queen replaced with an elected democratic head of state," it says.
" Count Tolstoy, 82, said as he sat in his lush garden behind an expansive stone house. that I love the monarchy,
