The Arab uprising sweeping the Middle East and North Africa is effectively changing the political landscape in the region. But while some countries are undergoing popular social-political changes, some will not see the same social revolutionary, regime-changing impulse. Arab monarchies seem immune so far. While the sources of grievances and the patterns of diffusion are similar throughout the MENA region, the outcome has varied, which imposes key theoretical and empirical questions. The paper argues that regime type is a key variable explaining the difference in the outcome of the protest movement in the Maghreb region. The paper lends support to Brumberg’s argument that “kings have more institutional and symbolic room to improvise reforms than do Arab presidents.” The paper suggests that this is in effect constitutes a monarchical “advantage”, which has so far insulated these political orders against regime instability. Hence, while some have decried a crisis of authoritarianism, the current paper modifies that contention and argues for crisis in “republican” authoritarianism, for its “monarchical” variant is resilient and has so far managed to survive the Arab protest movement. Monarchical advantage is traced back to the colonial period when European masters established most of the republican states arbitrarily. Monarchies, on the other hand, feature a different state-regime relationship as remnants of political orders pre-existed the edifice of the modern state constructed by either French or British colonialism. Current monarchical regimes have managed to surround existing regime coalitions with modern colonially-created states. The Maghreb’s only monarchy in Morocco has continuously utilized this “advantage” as it has proved more resilient than many had expected, and has largely outmaneuvered the beleaguered February 20 movement. The monarchical edifice in Morocco has relied on the interplay between symbolic, historical, and coercive means subsumed under the authority of the Makhzen apparatus of the state. The state in Morocco is in many ways an authority in which a synthesis of two dissimilar systems, rational-temporal and symbolic-religious, coexists in the face of modern challenges to regime stability. Relying on this synthesis of authority, institutional flexibility, and a calibrated pace of reforms, King Mohammed VI has managed to slow the momentum of the protest movement of February 20 by offering a semblance of reforms, and to emasculate the “ruling” government of Islamist Party of Justice and Development in the aftermath of the legislative elections of 2011.