Preface

About 2,300 years ago, the Greek astronomer Aristarchus, working without a telescope and relying only on observation, measurement, and the systematic comparison of data, reached a conclusion that challenged the prevailing belief of his time: the Sun did not revolve around the Earth; rather, the Earth revolved around the Sun.

Yet his idea failed to change the widely accepted view. What people regarded as “common sense” seemed to tell them otherwise. Every day, they saw the Sun rise on one side of the sky and set on the other. It therefore seemed obvious that the Sun must be moving around the Earth. Moreover, many believed that human beings were the highest form of creation and that their home should therefore occupy the center of the universe.

The geocentric view of the universe was not merely a belief held by ordinary people. Many of the greatest scholars and astronomers of their time, from Ptolemy to Al-Biruni, accepted it as well.

In those days, truth was generally sought in one of two ways: by turning to sacred texts or by relying on pure reason and logic. Systematic observation, measurement, and empirical testing had not yet acquired the place they hold today. For this reason, even some eighteen centuries later, when Copernicus examined a large body of astronomical measurements and once again arrived at a heliocentric model, it took many years for this view to gradually replace the prevailing belief.

But the scientific method slowly demonstrated its power. In its simplest form, it can be described in three steps. First, observations lead to a hypothesis intended to explain a phenomenon. Next, a way is designed to test that hypothesis. Finally, through careful measurement and the systematic collection of data, the hypothesis is tested against reality. If a hypothesis repeatedly survives independent tests and succeeds in explaining a broad range of observations, it may gradually develop into a scientific theory—not an eternal truth, but the best available explanation until a better one emerges.

Scientific testing, however, does not always take place in a laboratory under perfectly controlled conditions. For many of the most important scientific questions, such control is either impossible or ethically unacceptable.

Suppose, for example, that we want to know whether smoking increases the risk of lung cancer or heart disease. We cannot randomly select thousands of healthy people, force half of them to smoke for twenty or thirty years, forbid the other half from smoking, and then wait to see which group develops more disease. Such an experiment might seem ideal from a methodological standpoint, but it would clearly be ethically unacceptable.

Science, however, does not come to a halt in such situations. Instead of creating experimental groups, researchers study groups that have formed naturally in the real world. Millions of people choose to smoke, while millions of others never do. Scientists follow these individuals for years, sometimes decades, record their health outcomes, and use statistical methods to account, as far as possible, for factors such as age, sex, income, occupation, diet, and other variables that may influence the results.

No single study of this kind can establish a causal relationship with absolute certainty. But when hundreds of independent studies, conducted in different countries, involving millions of people and covering different periods, repeatedly point in the same direction; when the risk of disease rises as smoking increases; and when laboratory findings support the same conclusion, the accumulated evidence gradually produces a clear picture of reality.

Today, few people doubt that smoking is one of the major risk factors for lung cancer and many other diseases—not because a single experiment proved everything, but because a vast body of independent evidence, accumulated over decades, has consistently pointed to the same conclusion.

Science, therefore, is not merely the art of conducting controlled experiments. It is also the art of carefully drawing knowledge from a reality that often cannot be recreated in a laboratory.

Today, many examples of this kind of research can be found across different fields of science. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, many of the most important questions were answered not in laboratories, but within human societies themselves. Using data from millions of people in different countries, researchers studied vaccine effectiveness, the role of age and underlying health conditions, patterns of virus transmission, and dozens of other factors. Each individual study had its limitations, but when the findings of hundreds of independent studies were considered together, a reasonably clear picture of reality emerged. This was another example of how accumulated evidence can provide more reliable knowledge than any single observation or experience.

The social and political sciences, although they face even greater complexities, follow much the same logic. Countries cannot normally be treated like subjects in a laboratory experiment, randomly divided into two groups, and subjected to different systems of government for several decades so that the results can later be compared. Such an experiment would be neither practically possible nor ethically acceptable.

History, however, has conducted something resembling such an experiment—though certainly not a perfectly controlled one—on an enormous scale.

Today, dozens of countries are monarchies, while more than a hundred are republics. Over decades, and in some cases centuries, these countries have followed different paths, and the results of their performance have been recorded in thousands of economic, social, political, and governance indicators. Although far from perfect, this body of evidence provides us with the largest natural experiment available for an empirical study of how different systems of government perform.

But this raises a more basic question: why conduct such a study at all? Are the strengths and weaknesses of different systems of government not already known?

In much of contemporary political thought, the republic is presented as a symbol of modernity, freedom, and popular sovereignty, while monarchy is often regarded as a relic of the past. This view, rooted partly in historical experiences such as the American and French Revolutions, has become so deeply embedded in modern political discourse that many of us assume we already know the answer before looking at the empirical evidence.

Yet the history of science has repeatedly shown that even humanity’s most self-evident beliefs have not always matched reality. There was a time when it seemed obvious that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Disease was once thought to arise from polluted air or evil spirits. Even a few decades ago, many people did not accept that smoking could cause lung cancer. In the early twentieth century, a large proportion of the world’s population regarded the superiority of communism over other systems of government as self-evident. In each of these cases, it was empirical evidence—not philosophical argument or human intuition—that challenged deeply rooted beliefs.

For this reason, the central question of this book is not which system is more appealing from a philosophical or moral point of view. Instead, it asks: if we look only at the empirical record of countries, do we find a meaningful pattern in the performance of monarchies and republics?

Such a question cannot be answered by quoting philosophers or pointing to a handful of famous examples. It can only be addressed through a systematic examination of the data the world has accumulated over decades.

An important feature of this study is that the data used here were not originally collected to answer this question. International institutions, national statistical agencies, universities, and research organizations have spent years measuring indicators such as income per capita, life expectancy, crime rates, quality of governance, education, freedom, and dozens of other variables. They were not trying to demonstrate that monarchy is better than republic, or vice versa. Their purpose was simply to measure these indicators.

In this sense, the process through which these data were collected can, to a considerable extent, be regarded as “blind” and independent with respect to the hypothesis examined in this book. The data were produced before this study was conceived and independently of it. The likelihood that those who collected the data consciously or unconsciously shaped them to support or reject this book’s hypothesis is therefore considerably lower. This independence makes these datasets particularly valuable for putting the book’s central question to an empirical test.

This does not mean, of course, that all data are free from error or limitation. Any statistical indicator may suffer from measurement problems or differences in how countries collect and report information. But such limitations are different from bias introduced by an effort to prove a particular hypothesis. Moreover, when the results of dozens of independent indicators—collected by different institutions for different purposes—are considered together, they can provide a more reliable picture of reality.

Yet the independence of the data from the hypothesis is not, by itself, enough to produce a valid conclusion. Countries differ in geography, natural resources, culture, history, population, level of development, and countless other factors. For this reason, this book does not rely on a single country, a single indicator, or a handful of well-known examples. Its method is based on the principle of accumulating evidence: each indicator reveals only one part of the picture, and only when similar patterns repeatedly emerge across independent areas can we speak with greater confidence about whether a relationship exists.

This book examines indicators related to five fundamental goals of government: welfare, security, order, justice, and liberty. In each area, the performance of monarchies and republics will first be compared globally, then at the continental level, and finally within the Middle East. At the end, the findings from these independent analyses will be brought together to determine whether the evidence as a whole presents a consistent picture of the performance of the two systems of government.

This book was not written to prove a belief already held. If the data support conventional assumptions, that conclusion should be accepted. If they present a different picture, we should have the courage to reconsider our beliefs.

Nor was this book written to persuade readers to think as the author does. Its purpose is to encourage them, before reaching a judgment, to ask the same question Aristarchus asked: What do the data tell us?

Perhaps, at the end of this investigation, no meaningful pattern will emerge, and the conclusion will be that the form of government, by itself, does not play a decisive role in the fate of nations. But if a stable and recurring pattern does emerge from the mass of data, that pattern deserves to be considered with an open mind and without prejudice.

No study, however extensive, can have the final word on a subject as complex as government and national development. But every study can take us one step closer to the truth—especially when its conclusions are based not on assumptions, but on evidence.

These days, in my country, Iran, the question of which form of government is better and more effective is the subject of intense debate. But this book is written neither for supporters of monarchy nor for supporters of republic. Its intended audience is anyone willing to re-examine their beliefs—whatever those beliefs may be—in the light of empirical evidence, and to allow the data to speak before judgment is passed.

In the pages ahead, neither you nor I will be the final judge. The data will.

N. Fakhr
Autumn 2026