In 2004 King Sihanouk decided to abdicate, and Prince Norodom Sihamoni was selected to succeed him.
It would be the cautious move of a relatively elderly society deciding to abdicate from any major global role.
Reza Shah then decided to abdicate, to allow his son and heir, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to adopt a policy appropriate to the new situation, and to preserve his dynasty.
News of the new link to the Bronx was overshadowed by a surprising announcement from England: King Edward VIII had decided to abdicate.
"It's an EU which has decided to abdicate from its role of protecting the internal market and protecting its citizens," he said.
The closest that the progressive movement came to realizing this strategy was of course in 1968, when Lyndon Johnson decided to abdicate in the face of mass protest.
The Queen had to mediate between her brothers in 1555, when Charles decided to abdicate as emperor and leave the government of the Netherlands to his son Philip, despite Ferdinand's objections.
I recently mailed ten complaints on behalf of eight different survivors to the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, which has already informed me it has decided to abdicate it's duties, as it did in the Pelletier case, rather than investigate.
She quotes the wisdom -- conventional and self-evident -- of New York Times military correspondent Hanson Baldwin, who wrote in 1966 that U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam would bring "political, psychological and military catastrophe," signaling that the United States "had decided to abdicate as a great power".
He said he was following God's wishes in deciding to abdicate.
