A constitutional monarchy is a form of government that is usually a democracy and has a constitution, with the monarch as head of state. Either the monarch has to obey the laws like everyone else, or there are special laws that say what the monarch can and cannot do. The monarch usually can not decide their special laws on their own. There may be laws about whom the monarch's children can marry, for example, that are passed by the Parliament. For example, in the Netherlands, if a member of the royal family marries without the permission of Parliament, they cannot become king or queen themselves. The army and navy may swear an oath to the monarch, but the real control is given to the elected government. There are laws about property and the order of succession (who gets to be the next monarch) that can only be changed by the elected government. Usually the monarch must sign laws into effect, but is required to follow the will of the elected government.
A constitutional monarchy usually has separation of powers, and the monarch often has only ceremonial functions, such as representing the country while traveling or acting as a symbol for the whole country (not for a particular political party). Constitutional monarchs usually do not vote, even when it is legal for them to do so. Voting would mean that they picked a side in political arguments and then could not claim to represent everyone in the country. Some constitutional monarchies give the power to veto laws to the monarch, but in most countries where this is the case it is a power that is very rarely used. In countries where the monarch can dismiss or appoint governments, this is usually only done to make sure that the democratic process is respected, without taking sides in politics. Appointments to public office made by constitutional monarchs are generally approved by the democratically elected government beforehand.
Examples of Constitutional monarchies are the United Kingdom, most members of the Commonwealth of Nations, Australia, The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Japan and Spain. Thailand has a monarch who sometimes take part in politics to influence the government unlike in other constitutional monarchies, but he/she still is subject to law.
Today, there are three basic forms how to choose a new monarch, after the death of the old one; or because the old monarch left power:
Of these three, the order of succession is the most common case. Countries, where the monarchs are elected include Malaysia, Samoa, Cambodia, United Arab Emirates, Andorra, and Vatican City.
North Korea
North Korea (officially called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)), is a country in the northern part of the Korean peninsula. North Korea is next to China, Russia, and South Korea. The capital city of North Korea is Pyŏngyang, which is also the largest city.
The country was founded in 1948 after it had been freed from Japanese occupation, and a socialist state backed by the Soviet Union was established. The Republic of Korea is the southern half of the Korean Peninsula, and was occupied by the United States, and the U.S. set up a democracy in the south. At first there was a war between the armies of the North and South in what is called the Korean War, but while the fighting stopped in 1953, the war never officially ended. North Korea was friendly with China and Russia but never was formally allied with either and became more isolated over time. While South Korea had an unstable, authoritarian government after independence, the North went through steady development, was richer, and had a better standard of living than South until the 1980s, when the South became more democratic. Soon afterwards, the North's main trading partners, the Soviet Union, collapsed. This left North Korea stranded and isolated. Throughout the 1990s, North Korea suffered from famines and natural disasters. As South Korea got richer and life got better there, North Korea got poorer and life became worse there. Afterwards, things stabilized but continued to lag behind the South.
North Korea is generally described as a totalitarian Stalinist dictatorship. The country's leader Kim Il-sung said that the government was following his own ideology of "Juche", which means "self-reliance". Later on, the country's leaders began to remove "communism" from North Korean laws and philosophy. After Kim Il-sung died during the disasters of the 1990s, his son Kim Jong-il took his place and was promoted by the government as the leader who led North Korea out of the disasters. North Korea was the only communist country in history where leadership was directly given to the former leader's son after his death. This is called hereditary rule. Kim Jong-il enacted a new policy of "Songun", or "military-first", which turned the country into a military state. When he died in 2011, his youngest son Kim Jong-un took his place and continues to lead the country today.
Historians believe that the Korean people have lived in the area for thousands of years. Before 1910, Korea was one country. It had a king and people were mostly farmers. The country was peaceful and was not communist. In 1910, that changed. Japan and Russia went to war. Since Japan and Russia were both very close to Korea, Japan took Korea for themselves as part of Japan. Japan then had control.
Between 1910 and the end of World War II in 1945, Korea was considered a part of Japan due to Japan's unethical colonization of Korea. In 1945, the USSR declared war on Japan and the United States bombed it (Nagasaki and Hiroshima); severely weakening its empire and forcing it to surrender. Japan's weak status allowed the Soviets to enter Korea fairly freely and occupy the northern half whilst the United States took the southern half. Each then created governments supporting their own ideologies, Marxist–Leninist Single Party State (North) and Democratic Capitalist State (South).
In 1950, North Korea sent soldiers to South Korea. North Korea wanted to bring together North and South Korea to form a single Korean country, and Korean families that had been split by the division of North and South to be together again. The North Korean leaders wanted South Korea to be communist, like North Korea and the Soviet Union were.
The United Nations sent soldiers to Korea. These soldiers came from many countries. These countries did not like Communism (to learn more, see the article about the Cold War). If South Korea became Communist, then maybe other countries would too. General Douglas MacArthur led the soldiers.
North Korea had taken over much of South Korea by force. With the help of the other countries, South Korea took back their land, and even much of North Korea, up to the Yalu River, which forms the border between North Korea and China. China, which was also communist, helped the North Koreans to get the land back that the South Korean soldiers had taken.
After three years, in 1953, North Korea and South Korea both decided that no one would win the war and both countries signed an armistice, which is an agreement that made both countries stop fighting. North Korea and South Korea were divided by a demilitarized zone, or DMZ, which is a special place that surrounds the border between North and South Korea where both countries can not place lots of soldiers, so that fighting does not start again.
Even though the Korean Demilitarized Zone is meant to stop problems between the two countries, sometimes soldiers on both sides of the border fire their guns at each other. A special town in the zone, Panmunjom, is called the Joint Security Area, or JSA, and sometimes the leaders of both countries meet there to talk about possibly coming back together.