Where Do We Begin?

If we want to judge the performance of two systems of government, we must first answer a simple but fundamental question: What criteria should we use to evaluate a government?

Is the mere fact that a government is called a “republic” or a “monarchy” enough to judge one superior to the other? Or should we look instead at the results each system has produced in the lives of its citizens?

The answer is not as simple as it may first appear. Before we can measure how well governments perform, we need to know what we expect a government to do.

If we believe that the sole purpose of government is to provide security, we may reach a very different conclusion from someone who considers liberty its most important responsibility. Likewise, if we place justice above welfare, or welfare above social order, our criteria for judging governments will change accordingly.

Before examining the data, therefore, we need to establish the criteria by which governments will be judged.

This brings us to an important point. Empirical science can tell us which governments have been more successful at increasing welfare, reducing crime, or improving public health. But science alone cannot determine which of these goals is morally or philosophically more important.

In other words, science can help answer questions about “what is,” but the question of “what ought to be” belongs to the realm of political philosophy.

To determine the criteria for evaluating governments, then, we must first take a brief look at political thought.

The history of political thought is filled with disagreement about the purpose of government. Some philosophers have regarded order and security as its most important responsibilities. Others have placed individual liberty at the center of their thinking. Some have considered justice the most fundamental duty of government, while others have viewed the welfare and flourishing of citizens as the most important measure of its success.

These disagreements can be so profound that, at first glance, it may seem impossible to find a common standard for evaluating governments. A closer look, however, reveals a different picture.

Despite the many differences among schools of political philosophy, most of them share considerable common ground regarding a set of fundamental functions of government. Their main disagreement is usually about the priority given to these goals, rather than about whether the goals themselves matter. One theory, for example, may place liberty above justice, while another may give justice priority over welfare. Yet it is difficult to find a major political theory that regards security, liberty, order, justice, or welfare as entirely unimportant.

Rather than adopting any one school of political philosophy as the foundation of this study, we can therefore focus on the ground they share and select criteria that appear, directly or indirectly, in most major theories of government.

On this basis, this book evaluates government performance in five main areas:

• Welfare: the government’s ability to create suitable conditions for a good standard of living, meet basic needs, and improve the economic well-being of its citizens.
• Security: the government’s ability to protect the lives, property, and safety of society against internal and external threats.
• Order: the government’s ability to establish effective laws, enforce them properly, maintain stable public institutions, and create a predictable environment for social life and economic activity.
• Justice: the extent to which citizens are equal before the law, laws are applied fairly, and people are able to exercise and defend their rights.
• Liberty: the extent to which the government respects the individual, civil, and political liberties of its citizens.

These five areas do not, of course, cover every possible dimension of government, and other criteria could certainly be proposed. They do, however, have two important advantages. First, in one form or another, they appear throughout much of the tradition of political philosophy. Second, reasonably reliable and comparable international indicators are available for measuring each of them. This makes an empirical comparison of different systems of government possible.

Beginning with the next chapter, each of these goals will be examined separately. We will see how monarchies and republics have performed in each area and whether the global data reveal any meaningful differences or patterns between them. No conclusion, however, will be based on a single indicator or a single area. Each indicator captures only one part of reality, and a final conclusion can be reached only when evidence from different areas is considered together.

Just as we cannot judge a person’s overall health from the result of a single medical test, we cannot evaluate a system of government on the basis of a single indicator. A reliable picture emerges only when the results of several independent indicators are examined together. When those results point in the same direction, our confidence that we are observing a genuine pattern increases. When they differ, the disagreement may reveal more complex aspects of government performance.

Accordingly, no conclusion in this book will rest on a single indicator or isolated observation. Each conclusion will emerge from the combined weight of multiple independent indicators and empirical evidence.

The final judgment on monarchy and republic will therefore be postponed until all five areas have been examined. The next chapter begins this journey with the first goal: the welfare of citizens.