The disposable monarch: Strategic Severance and constitutional continuity in Denmark and Spain

Abstract

Constitutional monarchies manage abdication through different constitutional routes, but the institutional significance of these differences remains under-theorised. This article develops the concept of Strategic Severance to describe the managed separation of vulnerability centred on an incumbent sovereign from a continuing sovereign office. Drawing on historical institutionalism and Kantorowicz’s theory of the King’s Two Bodies, it uses a theory-building comparison of the 2014 Spanish abdication of King Juan Carlos I and the 2024 Danish abdication of Queen Margrethe II. Spain combined substantial reputational vulnerability with reactive departure and legislative implementation; Denmark combined high incumbent legitimacy with proactive departure and administrative implementation. The comparison shows that parliamentary involvement did not seriously threaten the Spanish succession but provided a formal arena in which pre-existing vulnerabilities could be politically contested. In Denmark, where succession was implemented without new legislation, no equivalent parliamentary arena arose. Constitutional procedure therefore conditions opportunities for political exposure during succession, interacting with incumbent vulnerability and the timing of departure rather than independently determining institutional resilience.