The use of the royal prerogative in the Spanish and Italian monarchy of the last third of the 19th century: A parliamentary government?

Abstract

In the 19^th century, the majority of european states were constituted, in a broad sense, in liberal monarchies, by endowing themselves with a constitutional text that sought, among other issues, delimiting the functions to be performed by the Throne in the face of a new political reality only seen before in England. Similarly, the crystallization of a form of parliamentary government in much of these liberal monarchies is usually observed at the end of the 19th century, adapting the English model that had been successfully implemented in this country since the 17^th century. This approach to the British ideal of monarchical government was the path taken by Spain and Italy throughout the century, since both countries designed a legal framework and a form of government that evolved, over the years, to a form of government with parliamentary overtones. However, the Spanish and Italian monarchs continued to have a large number of prerogatives attributed to them by their respective legal texts, legacies of the past and above all, a political praxis that made the constitutional customs and conventions assumed by the monarchical power manifest the fragility of parliamentarism in these two Mediterranean countries. This paper aims to address the use of the royal prerogative during the Spanish Restoration and the Italy of the Risorgimento to analyze, in comparative perspective, to what extent the political culture of both countries can be considered, at the height of 1900, a political culture of parliamentary government.