Monarchy Benefits Overstated

Ed West at the Wrong Side Of History blog makes a case for monarchy based upon the alleged stability of monarchies relative to republics. For example, in 2015, monarchies had less political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa than non-monarchies.

The article make not even a passing reference to correlation vs. causation. It's a little worse than "apples and oranges" when you're comparing Arab republics and Arab monarchies without reference to the postcolonial or sectarian factors that led to those differences. 

The problem with this is selection bias. Almost all countries used to have monarchs. Only the stable ones still do. “Arab republics” are just toppled Arab monarchies.

Similarly, US News ranks of countries by quality of life: Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Netherlands, Finland, Germany, New Zealand: 7 of them are monarchies, and 3 of those are members of the British Commonwealth. Another desirable place to live, Japan, is also a monarchy. 

But, in all of these countries the monarchs are figure-heads. They could replace their monarchs with elected heads of state like Germany or France and not much would change. We're not in the 18th century arguing whether actual monarchs rule better than republics. Basically every functioning "monarchy" in a developed country is actually a republic in substance.

I won't entirely discount the possibility that both true monarchies and symbolic constitutional monarchies do have some benefits, but selection bias and the failure to distinguish between the two kinds of monarchies pushes an analysis that overstates their benefits.