[golergka]

> Monarchs play a fairly unimportant rol

It may look like that, but it's not true. You know how a good system administrator doesn't seem that important because he prevents all the fires that a bad one would heroically put out? The mere presence of a monarch, not even his actions, acts in a similar fashion. They don't have to actively govern the country, but they have emergency powers that would allow them to prevent a wanna be populist dictator. And because of obvious game theory implications, these powers never have to be used — their mere existence, and everybody bring aware of their existence, is enough for deterrence.

[kristopolous]

Spain had a monarchy And a populist dictator, Franco. Japan had an emperor during WW2 and the Nazis caucused with the Monarchist party DNVP when they were forming a coalition government. Some of the Monarchists even went on to occupy Hitler's cabinet. King Victor Emmanuel III also ruled Italy during the reign of Mussolini.

So I'll have to toss a citation needed on this one. I think history demonstrates a pretty strong overlap between those who support monarchs and populist dictators because in practice, they are structurally pretty similar.