But can != will, I know that exploiting power is hard to resist but I am asking for specific examples as I don't really follow what happens in that area.
They are all absolute monarchies. All powers of government ultimately rest with the king.
There are different degrees of absolutism between each country, but to use the example of Saudi Arabia there are no assemblies (democratic or otherwise) with any meaningful power, there are no allowed political parties or national elections, and legislative, executive, and judicial functions are ultimately the powers of the king. All positions of power within the state are granted by the King generally to other members of the royal family.
This is dictatorship. Dictatorship isn't defined by brutality or abuse - it is any system where the leader or leaders hold absolute governmental power with few or no limitations.
The only limitation on the king of Saudi Arabia is the Sharia (of which the king is conveniently the final arbiter).
Qatar and Kuwait are constitutional, not absolute, monarchies [1][2]. They’re weakly constitutional, the latter a bit more than the former, but categorically different from Saudi Arabia.
Given the man who holds power in Riyadh isn’t King, Saudi Arabia is arguably a tyranny, not just a dictatorship.
Well, maybe not absolute monarchies, but I wouldn't compare them to the UK.
From Wiki:
Qatar:
- "The emir appoints the prime minister and cabinet".
- "The Consultative Assembly is the legislative body of the State of Qatar, with 45 members. The body can only question the prime minister, who is appointed by the Emir of Qatar, on his policies if two-thirds of the members agree, which is unlikely given that one-third of the members are appointed by the Emir."
- "The consultative assembly has the following functions:
Legislative authority
Approves the general budget of the government
Exercises control over the executive authority
The assembly has the right to forward proposals on public matters to the government. If the government doesn't comply with the proposal it has to give its reasons and the assembly can comment on them"
- "The government does not permit the existence of political parties or other political groupings. All candidates for the municipal council elections run as independents."
Kuwait:
- "Kuwait is an emirate[1] with a political system consisting of an appointed judiciary, appointed government (dominated by the Al Sabah ruling family), and nominally elected parliament."
- Executive: "The prime minister chooses the cabinet of ministers, which form the government. The prime minister is a member of the ruling family and is appointed by the Emir. "
- Judicial: "The judiciary in Kuwait is not independent of the government, the Emir appoints all the judges and many judges are foreign nationals from Egypt."
- Parliament: "On 22 June 2016 parliament passed a law banning any citizen who had insulted the emir from running, resulting in several major opposition figures including Musallam Al-Barrak and Bader Al-Dahoum becoming ineligible candidates."
The funny thing is that on paper they are absolutely comparable to the UK. The UK monarch is still theoretically responsible for nominating the Prime Minister and most other high officials and judges, with Parliament typically "advising" or "suggesting". In practice, we all know Parliament is effectively commanding the King to do their bidding, but most of it is very much by convention. Elizabeth II was effectively one of the low points for the British monarchy in terms of direct power, but there are very few legal barriers for a more activist ruler to push the pendulum back.
The crown has seldom exercised power in the past 200 years, it's been low since long before Elizabeth. No monarch has refused assent to a parliamentary bill since 1708, or dismissed a prime minister since 1834 (which ultimately failed, that prime minister returned to power in 1835 after the king's meddling failed to produce a new government).
It's true that on paper the king holds a lot of power. But functionally all of that power is invested in parliament. The institutions of the state answer to parliament, and there are no legal grounds for the crown to claw any of those powers back. A serious attempt by the king to make his own independent pronouncements as if they have the force of law is honestly the only situation I could see the UK abandoning the monarchy.
> No monarch has refused assent to a parliamentary bill since 1708
Because the crown exercises it's power in secret behind closed doors, not using the official assent procedure. They don't need to refuse assent to a parliamentary bill because the crown communicates their displeasure with bills before it even gets that far.
In the 60s the Queen chose and elected her own Prime Minister. In the late 90s the Queen refused Parliament the ability to debate a bill around strikes in Iraq.
The Crown dissolved the Australian government in the 70s. In Canada a few years ago they denied parliament the ability to dissolve itself and go to elections.
The power has been exercised in the last century multiple times.