King Tony I, and Hegel

Thom Brookes of Newcastle and Sheffield has an interesting piece out on SSRN, entitled 'No Rubber Stamp - Hegel's Constitutional Monarch,' which he asks not be cited for the time being.

Generally, I find German thinkers whose names begin with 'H' to be impenetrable (Hegel, Heidegger, Habermas, etc), so this must be good - even if it's a summary of Hegel rather than the man himself.

I'd commend the following points of interest:

1. As Brookes points out, Hegel doesn't believe in a threefold separation of powers - he regards the Judiciary as part of the Executive (p.9, note 30 and text);
2. Again, there is an obvious comparison with the UK (p.16), since Hegel comments that his monarch needed only be someone (anyone) to 'dot the 'i's.' However, when Hegel himself looks at the (then) UK (p.22 and note 70) he concludes that the UK monarch is too weak - even if no-one else considers whatever happened in 1692 to be the last royal rejection of a parliamentary decree;
3. In fact - tho' Brookes doesn't take this point that I can see - the better analogy to Hegel's powerful (or so Brookes argues) monarch is the Prime Minister. To take two topical points,
• the Monarch is unaccountable, while the Ministers are accountable to Parliament and dismissable by the Monarch (pp. 25-27);
• the needs (or 'needs') of foreign affairs may bring a temporary (or 'temporary') expansion to the Monarch's powers (p.33).

Hmmm ....