AHC: Modern Hapsburg-style countries

By "Hapsburg-style", I mean different countries ruled under a personal union (a politically meaningful union, that is, unlike the modern Commonwealth realms). In the present day such a country would be rather unlikely to form or survive, which is a shame, because the Hapsburg monarchy was kind of cool. What POD would be required to make Hapsburg-style countries viable in the year 2015?
 
Monarchism would have to remain more influential, I suppose. Currently the idea that a country should be politically unified with another because they share a monarch would be considered ludicrous. You need a situation where the country is so linked to the monarch that it is seriously considered his possession, instead of the monarch basically being a national mascot. Perhaps prevent the Enlightenment and associated revolutions somehow to prevent the idea of "the people" being the primary actors in a nation?
 
If you prevent the Acts of Union in the UK and keep Ireland as one of the crowns then I'd expect the United Kingdoms of England, Ireland, Scotland, and the Overseas Realms to roughly fit the bill
 
In the present day such a country would be rather unlikely to form or survive...
The EU suggests that it might not be absolutely certain, they're doing pretty well having started out as a free trade area and evolving through the different stages to become an economic union, and even economic and monetary union in places, as well as slowly centralising. They all started out as independent sovereign countries, although they did have the situation of coming out of WWII and the Soviets threatening Europe helping the process.
 
The EU suggests that it might not be absolutely certain, they're doing pretty well having started out as a free trade area and evolving through the different stages to become an economic union, and even economic and monetary union in places, as well as slowly centralising. They all started out as independent sovereign countries, although they did have the situation of coming out of WWII and the Soviets threatening Europe helping the process.

The EU isn't a personal union, though.
 
Top