One indicator more useful to this analysis than measures of monarchist sentiment is the rating of the institution of the Crown. For over two hundred months, ASEP has measured the evaluation of the Crown as an institution on a scale of 0 (very bad) to 10 (very good), together with three other institutions also included every month: the national government, the armed forces, and the banks, and around thirty or forty other institutions and social groups that are included in at least one month’s survey every year.

Every month, without exception, the Crown has received a better rating than the other three permanent institutions, as well as being rated higher than any other political institution in surveys in which they appear (national or regional governments, congress, senate, courts of justice, supreme court, constitutional court, ombudsman, political parties, labor unions, and many others). Its scores have ranged for the most part between 7.5 and 6.5, never going above 8 points nor below 6 points. Most other institutions rarely receive ratings above 5.5. Occasionally, in the annual comparison, some humanitarian or otherwise nonpolitical institution or social group (such as the Red Cross, Caritas, the National Organization for the Blind, Spain's system of public universities, or the constitution) has received ratings a few decimal points higher than the Crown. Generally, however, the Crown has had the most favorable public image of any institution.

Of course, as for any other institution, opinion of the Crown is subject to the prevailing political, economic, and social climate at any given time—that is, the degree to which Spaniards are either satisfied and optimistic or discontented and pessimistic. This can be seen in the results of surveys conducted between the elections of 2000 and those of 2004, when a general fall in the ratings of all institutions was observed.

But a time series based on data for the entire twenty-year period also shows that the Crown's ratings actually improve at certain times of particularly great discontent or fear while those of other institutions decline, suggesting that Spaniards consider the Crown as the last refuge when their trust in all other institutions fails. That happened, for example, in the spring of 1994, when political scandals for more than a year caused a situation of great social alarm and concern. It happened again as a result of the political crisis created after the elections of March 14, 2004—held only three days after the Islamic terrorist bombings in Madrid which killed almost two hundred people—when the center-right PP government lost in favor of the center-left PSOE. Since then, the Crown has been gaining image, as the government has been losing it.

Our next indicator measures the public image of King Juan Carlos himself. Since October 1986, ASEP has, at least once a year, asked respondents to rate the leader of each of the three most important national parties (PSOE, PP, and IU), as well as for the ratings of many other social, economic, and political leaders. In 1991, King Juan Carlos was added to this list.

As Figure 2 shows, the rating of the king has, without any exception, been significantly higher than that of any other leader throughout the past twenty years. The rating of Juan Carlos himself has also been higher than that of the Crown, and, consequently, higher than that of any of the other institutions.

In other consolidated constitutional monarchies in Europe where the monarchist tradition has not been interrupted, the prestige of the institution of the Crown is transferred to the king or queen at any particular time, providing them with its legitimacy. In Spain, it has been the king who has transferred his prestige to the Crown, providing it with his legitimacy. Juan Carlos’s rating has always been above 7 points on the 0 to 10 point scale, and always very near 8 points. His good public image has projected itself not only to the Crown, but also to the other members of the royal family—Queen Sofía, Prince Felipe, Infantas Elena and Cristina, and, more recently, Princess Letizia, Prince Felipe’s wife—all of whom are rated above any other public leader in annual summary rankings. (Only Pope John Paul II has been among them for the past two years, though always below King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía.)