2.4 Republican and Monarchical Constitution

Monarchical: the head of state is a hereditary monarch. Varieties: absolute (the monarch as the source of all law — Nepal before 1951 in substance) and constitutional (the monarch reigns but does not rule — bound by the constitution, acting on ministers' advice: the UK, Japan, Spain, Denmark; Nepal under the 1990 Constitution). Constitutional monarchy's logic: a symbolically continuous, politically neutral headship above parties, paired with responsible democratic government. Its risk: a monarch tempted into politics, or a public unwilling to keep the crown purely ceremonial — the exact story of Nepal's 2005 royal takeover. Republican: the head of state is a (usually elected) President — the office, not a bloodline, personifies the State; the people, not a dynasty, are its ultimate source. Varieties: executive presidents (USA — the President is also head of government) and ceremonial parliamentary presidents (India, Germany, Nepal — elected heads of state within parliamentary systems). Republicanism's logic: offices open to all, filled by election, for limited terms — popular sovereignty institutionalised. Nepal — the sharpest classification switch in South Asia: from the world's only Hindu kingdom (the Crown's 2005 takeover having destroyed the 1990 settlement) to, after the 2006 people's movement and the Constituent Assembly's first meeting in 2008, a federal democratic republic — a ceremonial President elected by an electoral college of federal and…