A federal monarchy is a federation of states with a single monarch as over-all head of the federation, but retaining different monarchs, or a non-monarchical system of government, in the various states joined to the federation.

As a term in political science

The term was introduced into English political and historical discourse by Edward Augustus Freeman, in his History of Federal Government (1863). Freeman himself thought a federal monarchy only possible in the abstract.

Federal monarchies

Historically

Historically the most important example of a federal monarchy is the German Empire of 1871-1919. The head of state of the federation was a monarch, the emperor, who was also head of state of some constituent parts to the federation as king of Prussia, while other constituent kingdoms, such as the Kingdom of Bavaria or the Kingdom of Saxony, retained their own monarchs and armies. Some of the constituent states federated to the empire, namely Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck, were non-monarchical city-states.

The concept played a role in political debates in Italy and Austria-Hungary in the nineteenth century and in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the twentieth century, without ever being put into effect in any of these cases. Canada and Australia are also federal monarchies, and both share the same individual as their respective sovereign.

Currently the term can be applied in the fullest sense to Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates, in both of which the head of state of the federation is selected from among the heads (sultans or emirs respectively) who rule the constituent states of the federation.