How powerful are the world’s remaining royals?

Recently appointed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged his loyalty to British King Charles III on July 6, 2024, continuing a tradition that dates back centuries.

However, since the leadership role taken by Prime Minister David Lloyd George in World War I, the monarchy’s political influence has become progressively ceremonial and even more precarious since the death of the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.

This trend is not unique to the UK; in recent centuries, the role of royalty in politics has declined considerably worldwide. As political ideals began challenging royal authority in Europe, European colonial powers began to undermine their authority overseas.

The strain of World War I helped cause several European monarchies to collapse, and World War II diminished their numbers further. After, the Soviet Union and the US divided Europe along ideological lines and sought to impose their communist and liberal democratic ideals elsewhere, and the remaining monarchs faced accelerating marginalization.

Today, fewer than 30 royal families are politically active on a national scale. Some, like Japan’s and the UK’s, trace their lineages back more than a millennium, while Belgium’s is less than 200 years old. Several have adapted by reducing political power while maintaining cultural and financial relevance, while others have retained their strong political control. Their various methods and circumstances make it difficult to determine where royals may endure, collapse, or return.

Alongside the UK, the royals of Belgium, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands have all seen their powers become largely ceremonial. Smaller European monarchical states like Andorra and the Vatican City are not hereditary, while