Imagining the Right to Rule: The Crown as a Political Symbol in New Zealand

Abstract

The Crown symbolises an entity at the very top of the political structure in New Zealand. It seems to possess agency, a singular will, is associated with honour, due process and rises above political divides of the day. It bundles together an assortment of individuals and organisations including the Queen, the Governor-General, the government and the state. This thesis starts from the observation that the Crown is a ubiquitous yet curiously overlooked and taken for granted phenomenon. Its everyday use assumes an unproblematic shared meaning that goes without saying, when in fact the Crown refers to different things at different times. This difficulty in defining the Crown stems from the presumption that it exists as a discrete and concrete entity. Alternatively, I approach the Crown as a political symbol rather than a materially existing institution. In this thesis, I provide a multi-sited ethnographic account of the Crown in New Zealand based on archival research, discourse and visual analyses, observation of political events and interviews with officials, politicians, lawyers, academics, and historians – those people who work with the symbol of the Crown. Drawing on anthropological theories of the state and kingship, I show how the Crown is constructed through cultural techniques, including visual and discursive representation and ritual practice, and how it provides a way to imagine political structure, constitutional monarchy, sovereignty and the nation. It legitimises political action; officials use it to conceptualise the parts of the state they work with; it facilitates discussions of the state’s colonial past that are consistent with the idea of the state today; and it allows politicians to symbolise an external source of sovereignty while acting as if they have sovereign authority. I conclude by reflecting on the implications of constitutional reform for the future of the Crown in New Zealand.