High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The granting of royal assent refers to the method by which any constitutional monarch formally approves and promulgates an act of his or her nation`s parliament, thus making it a law. In the vast majority of contemporary monarchies, this act is considered to be little more than a formality; even in those nations which still permit their ruler to withhold the royal assent (such as the United Kingdom, Norway and Liechtenstein), the monarch almost never does so save in a dire political emergency (see reserve power), or upon the advice of his or her government. While the power to withhold royal assent was once exercised often in European monarchies, it is exceedingly rare in the modern, democratic political atmosphere that has developed there since the 18th century.