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Today, constitutional monarchy is almost always combined with representative democracy, and represents a compromise between theories of sovereignty which place sovereignty in the hands of the people, and those that see a role for tradition in the theory of government. Though the king or queen may be regarded as the government's symbolic head, it is the Prime Minister, whose power derives directly or indirectly from elections, who actually governs the country.
Although current constitutional monarchies are mostly representative democracies, this has not always historically been the case. There have been monarchies which have coexisted with constitutions which were fascist (or quasi-fascist), as was the case in Italy, Japan and Spain, or those in which the government is run as a military dictatorship, as was the case in ThailandThe Kingdom of Thailand is a country in southeast Asia, bordering Laos and Cambodia to the east, the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia to the south, and the Andaman Sea and Myanmar to the west. Thailand is also known as Siam which was the country's official n.
Some constitutional monarchies are heriditary; others, such as that of Malaysia are elective monarchies.
Queen Rania of JordanThe Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan commonly called Jordan is a country in the Middle East. It is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the north-east, Saudi Arabia to the east and south, and Israel and West Bank to the west. It shares the coastlines of the has commented that the difference between ruling a monarchy and ruling a democracy is that, in the latter, an error costs at most the next election, whereas a monarch might well lose their head.
Source: CIA Factbook 2004