[JumpCrisscross]

> Those countries are monarchies, yes. I wouldn't call them dictatorships

Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship and a monarchy. The monarch exercises absolute political power. (Arguably, it’s a tyranny, since its de facto leader, the Crown Prince, doesn’t exercise power through constitutional channels—he isn’t King.)

Qatar and Kuwait are constitutional monarchies with something resembling a legislative counterpoint to the executive. As long as their leaders operate within their constitutions, i.e. don’t dissolve or dominate their legislatures, they aren’t technically dictators.

[sudosysgen]

That doesn't follow. A monarchy can be constitutional and still be absolute. In Qatar for example, the monarch appoints the cabinet and 1/3 of the parliament, which needs 2/3+1 vote to overrule the prime minister...

No need to dissolve or dominate the legislature, it's both a constitutional and absolute monarchy. It's theoretically but not practically possible for the parliament to limit the king. It's a similar story in Morocco and Kuwait.

[JumpCrisscross]

> A monarchy can be constitutional and still be absolute

Absolute means absolute, including the ability to redraw the constitution. Constitutional monarchy means limited by a constitution.

> the monarch appoints the cabinet and 1/3 of the parliament, which needs 2/3+1 vote to overrule the prime minister

This is not absolute. It's no democracy. But Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy. Everyone serves at the pleasure of the King, who is the King of Saudi Arabia, not King of the Saudis. "L'etat, c'est il."

Political power works formally and informally. Kuwait and Qatar's emirs are exceptionally powerful. But they have political organs to contend with, even if solely for appearance's sake. That's a constraint an absolute monarch with dictatorial authority does not have. (Repeatedly over-ruling a constitutional body, or being caught coercing it, historically weakened semi-constitutional monarchs.)

For the intellectual history of this, look at the Roman kings, Spartan ephors, Roman consuls and British and French monarchies. Powerful executives. But variously checked, even if from time to time they held quasi-absolute, even dictatorial, authority.

[sudosysgen]

I guess our disagreement is on whether you should judge by practical or theoretical powers. In practice, the emir of Qatar to give an example, is not prevented by the constitution to realize any concrete action, up to and including changing the interpretation of the constitution (or the constitution itself). These actions can be done practically in complete accordance to the law and without coercion by various mechanisms.

This is not a situation similar to ephors, or consuls, or British monarchs (which never were able to establish an absolute monarchy - King Charles was executed essentially due to his attempt to introduce French-style absolute monarchy.

It is similar to the Roman kings, but those were generally considered to be absolute monarchs. That's how I learnt it in college and Wikipedia seems to agree. In many ways the Qatari emirs are even more powerful - the Senate had the right to refuse the nomination of a King indefinitely and they were subject to an election.

It's different from a typical constitutional monarchy where the King would have to break the law to exert his will - in the case of Qatar and Kuwait, the King doesn't even have to break the law or coerce in order to do what he wants, he just needs to do a bit of a dance. This goes beyond even the concept of a semi-constituonal monarchy where the monarch has executive powers, in these cases the king has absolute executive and judicial power as well as most of the legislative power. Many people consider this to actually be an absolute monarchy, because it legally allows the monarch to do literally anything.