BERLIN ¨C Can royalty be fired? The resignations of the United Kingdom¡¯s Prince Andrew from public duties following a disastrous TV interview concerning his friendship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein doesn¡¯t quite go all the way ¡ª but the king of Sweden, for example, recently cut five blameless grandchildren from the royal house. That¡¯s a good practice in an age when monarchies are essentially keepers of a brand rather than rulers.
In a 2006 paper, John Balmer of the Bradford School of Management in the U.K., Stephen A. Greyser of Harvard University and Mats Urde of Lund University in Sweden argued that Europe¡¯s constitutional monarchies function as corporate brands.
This makes sense: Even when monarchs have a lot of constitutional power, as in Norway, where the king theoretically could veto any law and pick prime ministers more or less at will, it just doesn¡¯t happen anymore. Perhaps the only monarch who does play an active political role is the king of Belgium, who constantly has to prod parties in the country¡¯s two nearly-independent halves to form governments together.
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