History Main / ElectiveMonarchy

** A later patch added the 'Tanistry' succession law to the game which can be chosen by Celtic rulers (Irishmen, Picts, Scots, Welshmen, and Bretons). On the plus side candidacy is restricted to members of the ruling dynasty, so no losing titles to popular underlings. On the negative side, if you are a duke or king[[note]]the base rule is that in feudal elective vassals one tier down get to vote, while in tanistry vassals ''two'' tiers down also get to. This obviously doesn't affect counts since they only have one tier below them, and feudal elective has a special rule for empires where both kings and dukes get the vote.[[/note]], ''every'' landed noble in the realm gets a vote, not just the dukes, so getting the winner you actually want becomes near-impossible. Additionally, NPC voters in tanistry tend to prefer older candidates from other branches of the dynasty than your direct line of descent, which can complicate things further.

* King David Johann of Callan in ''Webcomic/DominicDeegan'', though the first elected king due to being the first human archmage ([[spoiler: and the hereditary king and queen having been assassinated by him]]).
* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'': As Sam [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3600/fc03562.htm explains]], when his homeland's throne is vacant, the royal family (formed by adopting promising new sqids since they die after reproducing) elects one of their own to fill it.

* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'' and the rest of the Cosmic Era timeline includes the tiny but powerful pacific nation called the "Orb Union" ruled by a elected legislature à la most constitutional monarchies but also by, not one, but '''five''' noble families, the most prominent is current ruling family, the Athhas while most of the rest are featured in the side stories like Astray, all five must agree on decisions that affect the rest of the country and voting for a "Chief Representative", the official head of state amongst their Lords (though Cagalli Yula Athha, Princess of Orb directly inherited her Father's, Lord Uzumi's position).

** A peculiar attitude towards this is the British monarchy, where said nobles--plus some rich commoners--had formed themselves into a Parliament early on and had repeated disputes with the monarchs about who got to "settle the succession": that is, determine the law of who got to be King. After a [[UsefulNotes/EnglishCivilWar big war]], Parliament came out on top; to this day, the British succession is governed solely by statutory law passed by Parliament, and the will of the monarch is more or less only given weight as a practical consideration.[[note]]"More or less", because--this being Britain--it's not quite that simple. The monarch is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown-in-Parliament at least nominally kind-of-sort-of part of Parliament]] inasmuch as the monarch must [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Assent approve bills and formally retains the right not to do so]]. Therefore, at least in theory, a monarch could withhold Royal Assent for any bill altering the succession, and constitutionally this would be acceptable because the monarch would be acting in her/his capacity as the kind-of-sort-of third chamber of Parliament, and so "Parliament" would have rejected the change. That also being said, there are very strong conventions that monarchs will not use a "reserve power" like withholding Royal Assent to a bill that has passed the Lords and Commons, so (as happens so often) the force of tradition serves in place of formal legal barriers to keep the British system making sense.[[/note]] Thus although the British monarchy ''is'' hereditary, it is indirectly elective, because Parliament decided to set down a predetermined hereditary succession law rather than elect a new monarch each time the monarch died or elect a designated successor while the monarch lives (both of which Parliament is legally entitled to do). So in a way, Britain is an elective monarchy where the electing body has decided that doing the actual elections would be too much work (and that it was desirable to continue with the French-derived system of the heir instantly taking the throne upon the monarch's death, avoiding any interregnum period in which the throne is empty) and simply set down a law that "automatically" elects the monarch's heir by primogeniture as the new monarch. Under the United Kingdom's system of parliamentary supremacy, the exact mechanism for succession can be and has been changed at will by a new vote of Parliament, most recently with the Perth Agreement in 2013 to change from male-preference to absolute primogeniture and to remove the ban on those in line to the throne from marrying Catholics. (UsefulNotes/TheCommonwealth adds the further wrinkle that at least some of the various Commonwealth Realms--the former colonies which retained constitutional monarchy on independence and remain in personal union with Britain--''also'' have to approve the change, but on the two occasions it might have been a problem in 1936 and 2013, they did so with relatively little fuss.[[note]]In 1936, the government of the Irish Free State made a point of symbolically dragging its feet, but only for a day (at this point Ireland was almost completely constitutionally independent of Britain anyway, and was slowly demolishing the remaining links). There was some fear that Quebec would try and leverage the 2013 change for policy concessions, but between some fancy constitutional footwork by [[UsefulNotes/CanadianPrimeMinisters Stephen Harper]]'s Conservative federal government at the time and the subsequent defeat of the sovereigntist Quebec provincial government for unrelated reasons, the succession has stopped being a live political issue in Canada. The biggest delay in 2013 was because the Parliament of the State of Western Australia--whose seat, ironically, is just down the street from where the Commonwealth Realms had hashed out and signed the agreement formally proposing the change--simply ''forgot'' to put the succession issue on the agenda.[[/note]])

* The UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire (of the German Nation): The King of the Germans (who would usually but not always be crowned Emperor)[[note]]Until the 16th century it was only popes who could make Holy Roman Emperors.[[/note]] was elected from the 12th century onward. However, while the electors were always some combination of secular rulers and prince-archbishops (i.e. archbishops who were also the secular rulers of some or all of their ecclesiastical province), ''which'' of the secular and clerical greats of the Empire would have the privilege was a frequent source of contention.

* A variation among various Celtic clans was called "Tanistry" in which the elders elected the ''heir'' to the chiefdom rather than the chief. Among other things, this would make it less likely that an election needed to be held during a SuccessionCrisis: if the old chief was suddenly killed in battle before his clan had time to discuss an impending succession the successor was ready. This custom carried on for a long time and was brought to America by Scots-Irish. It is notable though perhaps coincidental that the election for President of the United States always finishes several months before the previous one leaves office. The last vestige of this tradition may be found in the title of Ireland's deputy prime minister... ''tanaiste''.

* ''LightNovel/TrappedInADatingSimTheWorldOfOtomeGamesIsToughForMobs'' has the Alzer Republic. Their Chairman is selected this way from the heads of the Seven Great Noble households that each lead their own [[WorldInTheSky floating island]] kingdoms. Although technically this, the chairmanship [[HereditaryRepublic always belonged to]] the Lespinasse Household, because only they could give birth to women eligible to become a [[WorldTree Sacred Tree]] Priestess. Ten years prior to the story, the Lespinasse were wiped out by the Rault Household as part of the [[MediaTransmigration second game]] protagonist's RulingFamilyMassacre, with said Raults serving as chairmen ever since, and the Lespinasse territory behind divvied up between the remaining families.

* ''LightNovel/TrappedInADatingSimTheWorldOfOtomeGamesIsToughForMobs'' has the Alzer Republic. Their Chairman is selected this way from the heads of the Seven Great Noble households that each lead their own [[WorldInTheSky floating island]] kingdoms. Although techincally this, the chairmanship [[HereditaryRepublic always belonged to]] the Lespinasse Household, because only they could give birth to women eligible to become a [[WorldTree Sacred Tree]] Priestess. Ten years prior to the story, the Lespinasse were wiped out by the Rault Household as part of the [[MediaTransmigration second game]] protagonist's RulingFamilyMassacre, with said Raults serving as chairmen ever since, and the Lespinasse territory beind divvied up between the remaining families.

* ''LightNovel/TrappedInADatingSimTheWorldOfOtomeGamesIsToughForMobs'' has the Alzer Republic. Their Chairman is selected this way from the heads of the Seven Great Noble households that each lead their own [[WorldInTheSky floating island]] kingdoms. Although techincally this, the chairmanship [[HereditaryRepublic always belonged to]] the Lespinasse Household, because only they could give birth to women eligible to become a [[WorldTree Sacred Tree]] Priestess. Ten years prior to main story, the Lespinasse were whiped out by the Rault Household as part of the [[MediaTransmigration second game]] protagonist's RulingFamilyMassacre, with said Raults serving as chairmen ever since.

*** The War of the Austrian Succession is an instructive example of how this worked in practice. The war came about because the male-line Habsburgs were dying out, and the last two agnatic Habsburgs, Joseph I and his brother Charles VI, had expended a lot of political capital getting the other electors to secure a Habsburg succession through their daughters should both of them die without male issue. The problem was that the deals they secured were contradictory: Joseph's deal put his daughters ahead of any Charles might have, but in 1713 Charles (by that point Emperor) flipped that and got the electors to agree. This ''should'' have secured the succession for [[UsefulNotes/MariaTheresa his daughter]], but when Charles VI died, the Duke of Bavaria successfully nobbled all the other electors[[note]]This included Hanover; as the election happened two years into the war and Britain--in personal union with Hanover--was ''fighting on Austria's side'', this seems to have come as a bit of a shock to the Austrians. The Duke of Bavaria's brother, the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, also voted for him, even though he had allied Cologne with Austria and favored the Habsburg succession.[[/note]] and they backed him on the grounds that Charles VI's deal was improper and preference should have been given to the claims of his wife--one of Joseph I's daughters.

* In the UsefulNotes/{{Islam}}ic World the Caliphs, successors to Muhammad, were originally elected by consensus of the community. The first four Caliphs, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashidun_Caliphate Rashidun Caliphate]] were elected in this fashion as Sunni Muslims believed Muhammad had originally intended[[note]]The schism between Sunni and Shia Muslims originated as a disagreement over how Muhammad had intended the Caliph to be selected, with the Shia believing it should be hereditary.[[/note]] before Muawiyah, the sixth caliph, [[AvertedTrope averted]] this trope and turned the Caliphate into what is known as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_Caliphate Umayyad Dynasty]], a hereditary monarchy.

** During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, one of the demands of the Italian patriots to continue supporting the monarchy was for a referendum to either confirm or remove the monarchic regime to be held after victory. Due king Victor Emmanuel III abdicating about a month before the referendum, thus reminding everyone ''why'' they were holding it in the first place, the referendum resulted in 54% in favor of a republic, with the new king Umberto II, who had already proved himself an exceptional ruler as a regent, choosing exile rather than pointing out the possibility of a fraud and causing a civil war.

* '''Manga/WelcomeToDemonSchoolIrumaKun''': The Thirteen Crowns and the Three Greats are the current leaders of the Demon World, but none of them are the King. The next Demon King is to be selected by these two groups. It is believed one of their members in either group is likely to become the next Demon King. [[spoiler:However, by chapter 200, the Greats have come to the conclusion neither any member of the Thirteen nor each other should be the Demon King. Selecting any of them would create in-fighting and destabalize the Demon World further. Instead, they have chosen to nominate one of their own grandsons for title of Demon King and have asked the Thirteen Crowns to help evaluate and mold these candidates into a proper King all could follow. They will even allow the Thirteen to nominate candidates of their own]].

* Similarly, in ''LightNovel/CrestOfTheStars'' the Abh Empire is ruled by the eight hereditary Royal families descended from the heads of the original Abh clans, who elect the Emperor among themselves through a complicated procedure that involves designating the several prospective Heirs Presumptive from different clans and then judging [[RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething their progress through ranks]][[note]]as the heir has to be an actual serving military officer — a Supreme Commander, to be precise[[/note]] by the council of the retired Emperors, until one achieves the top and is designated the Crown Prince or Princess. In the current historical period the power is for several generations remains in the Dubleuscr branch of the Abliarsec clan, the current Empress being the Lamhirh's grandmother, and her father Heir Presumptive (the current Crown Prince is a King from a different branch, though).
* Part of ''Manga/CastleTownDandelion'''s premise involve the King putting his successor to ''universal suffrage'', selecting among his nine children.

* ''Literature/{{Belgariad}}'':
** Sendaria chose its first king like this, and ''everyone'' could vote. Also, the winning candidate had to have a ''majority'' of the votes rather than simply the ''most'' votes. It took six years and twenty-two ballots to winnow the 724 candidates down to a single winner, a rutabaga farmer named Fundor. As a result, nobody takes the monarchy all that seriously--not even the monarch.
** The Empire of Tolnedra elects a new Emperor if the old one dies without an heir. But the heir doesn't have to be blood -they can be adopted. Like a very popular general being adopted by the current Emperor.

* ''Literature/TheElenium'' has this in [[FantasyCounterpartCulture pretty much the same way as the Papacy]] for the Archprelacy of the Elene Church. The sequel series, ''Literature/TheTamuli'', has a report within the foreign Tamuli Empire (which uses hereditary inheritance) that calls the Elene Church's tradition of electing their leader weird, but acknowledges that there isn't any non-offensive way to make it hereditary considering Elene priests are supposed to be celibate.

* The Empire of Tolnedra elects a new Emperor if the old one dies without an heir. But the heir doesn't have to be blood -they can be adopted. Like a very popular general being adopted by the current Emperor.

* In the ''Literature/{{Belgariad}}'' series, Sendaria chose its first king like this, and ''everyone'' could vote. Also, the winning candidate had to have a ''majority'' of the votes rather than simply the ''most'' votes. It took six years and twenty-two ballots to winnow the 724 candidates down to a single winner, a rutabaga farmer named Fundor. As a result, nobody takes the monarchy all that seriously--not even the monarch. Also, the Empire of Tolnedra elects a new Emperor if the old one dies without an heir.

** Ferelden is a {{downplayed}} example. While on the surface the nation appears to follow a traditional feudal system with primogeniture inheritance, unlike in neighboring Orlais where the nobles believe in rule by divine right, Ferelden has a culture of rule by merit and is more democratic. The banns (the lowest form of titled nobility, sort of like barons) are elected from the local gentry by the Freeholds (free men and women) to protect them in exchange for allegiance, and though the title usually passes to the bann's eldest son, it doesn't have to. The higher-ranked teyrns (akin to dukes) in turn have the loyalty of banns and arls (earls), and the king is regarded as merely the most powerful teyrn and is elected by them at the Landsmeet (an annual council of the nobles that serves the role of a parliament) if the line of succession is unclear, as in the SuccessionCrisis plot in ''[[VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins Origins]]''.

** The Dwarven Kingdom of Orzammar. The King appoints a heir and the Assembly usually approves it, but they can reject the former King's first choice in the past and select their own. This is the source of much of Prince Trian Aeducan's anxiety; though Trian is the eldest and named heir, King Endrin's second child (the player character) is much more popular among both the people and the Assembly than he is, and he fears Endrin will replace him. Later in the game, the Assembly cannot choose a king between Prince Bhelen (Trian's younger brother who became the heir to House Aeducan following Trian's death) and Lord Pyral Harrowmont. Endrin allegedly chose Harrowmont (at least according to the latter's supporters) and there is suspicion that Bhelen was involved in Trian's murder. [[spoiler:Suspicion that is confirmed by playing the Dwarf Noble origin, where Bhelen either tricks the player (his older sibling) into killing Trian or frames them for the deed.]] According to Prince Bhelen, the Assembly has passed over the king's chosen heir at least a half-dozen times; the founder of House Bemot became a Paragon and the king in one vote from the Assembly.

** The Dwarven Kingdom of Orzammar. The King appoints a heir and the Assembly usually approves it, but they can reject the former King's first choice in the past and select their own.

* UsefulNotes/AngloSaxons were this, sort of. The Witenagemot: "council of wise men" (chief [=VIPs=] of the kingdom basically) chose who the king would be among the royal family. This has been exaggerated by patriotic Englishmen who wanted to emphasize Saxon's democratic virtues; all sorts of criteria could interfere, including the will of the previous monarch and sometimes simply AsskickingEqualsAuthority. Nonetheless it was something of an elective monarchy.

* The Kingdom of Rhodoks in VideoGame/MountAndBlade games. As one of your followers notes, even though Rhodok citizens [[CulturalPosturing consider themselves superior to the other lands of Calradia]] due to having a more civilised means of government, in practise they still have a ruling elite of lords and a downtrodden peasant class, same as all the other kingdoms.

* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'': As Sam [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3600/fc03562.htm explains]], when his homeland's throne is vacant, the royal family elects one of their own to fill it.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' the rulers of dictatorships are elected for life, dictatorships with the "Philosopher King" civic are even referred to as Elective Monarchies.

* ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'' has the Twili, but it's never elaborated any further.

Of course, [[HumansAreBastards human nature]] being what it is, disappointed candidates upset with the results or the agenda of the monarch proceed to lead a rebellion against the winner, not that primogeniture necessarily prevents [[SuccessionCrisis civil wars]] either. Similarly, the process of joining the electors or even the candidates is a good source of drama in the DeadlyDecadentCourt.