Absolute Monarchy

In an absolute monarchy, sovereignty is concentrated in the person of the monarch, who exercises executive, legislative, and often judicial authority without meaningful institutional checks. The doctrine is historically associated with the divine right of kings, articulated in early modern Europe by writers such as Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet and embodied politically by Louis XIV of France (r. 1643–1715), whose reign is often summarized by the apocryphal phrase "L'État, c'est moi."

Absolute monarchies differ from constitutional monarchies (such as the United Kingdom, Japan, or Sweden), where the monarch's powers are formally limited by a constitution or basic law and real political authority lies with an elected legislature. They also differ from autocracies more broadly, since legitimacy in an absolute monarchy is grounded in hereditary succession and often a religious or traditional claim rather than ideology or electoral mandate.

Contemporary states commonly classified as absolute or near-absolute monarchies include:

• Saudi Arabia, where the King serves as head of state and government and the Basic Law of Governance (1992) designates the Qur'an and Sunnah as the constitution.
• Oman, Brunei, and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), where the monarch retains decisive authority over legislation and appointments.
• The Vatican City State, a non-hereditary elective absolute monarchy under the Pope.

The United Arab Emirates and Qatar are sometimes grouped here, though they have appointed or partially elected consultative bodies. The historical trajectory in most of Europe ran from absolutism toward constitutionalism via events such as the English Glorious Revolution (1688), the French Revolution (1789), and the abolition of the Russian autocracy in 1917.

In international relations scholarship, absolute monarchies raise distinctive questions about regime durability, succession politics, rentier-state dynamics, and compliance with human rights instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which presupposes popular sovereignty in Article 21.