Enlightened despotism
An enlightened despot was a monarch during the Enlightenment who ruled with some concern for the welfare of his people. In other words, this type of king allowed some reforms for the good of the people but still maintained absolute power. Enlightened despotism forms a crucial part of progressivism, having been referenced by Woodrow Wilson in his ever-important work The Study of Administration. Wilson wrote that the Administrative state present in European despotic systems could be imported and Americanized.
Voltaire, a prominent French philosophe and Enlightenment thinker, was also a proponent of such a government. Monarchs that are considered enlightened despots usually ruled over Eastern European countries, such as Emperor Joseph II of Austria or Catherine the Great of Russia.
The term has also been applied to many modern dictators, often of a Communist viewpoint. Joseph Stalin,[2] Fidel Castro,[3] Mustafa Kemal Atatürk,[4] Napoleon Bonaparte,[5] Mussolini,[6] and Josip Broz Tito.[7]
