Other complications include general non-consensus or deliberate „distortion or bias“ of reasonable technical definitions of political ideologies and related forms of government due to the nature of politics in modern times. For example: the meaning of „conservatism“ in the United States has little in common with how the definition of the word is used elsewhere. As Ribuffo notes, „what Americans today call conservatism calls much of global liberalism or neoliberalism“; a „conservative“ in Finland would be called a „socialist“ in the United States. [12] Since the 1950s, conservatism in the United States has been primarily associated with the Republican Party. During the era of racial segregation, however, many Southern Democrats were conservative and played a key role in the conservative coalition that controlled Congress from 1937 to 1963. [13] Enlightened absolutism – also called enlightened despotism and benevolent absolutism – was a form of absolute monarchy in which monarchs were influenced by the Enlightenment. In a strange historical contradiction, enlightened monarchs justified their absolute power by embracing Enlightenment concerns about individual liberty, education, art, health, and the rule of law. Instead of basing their absolute authority on religious autocracy, as before, these mostly European monarchs relied on 18th and early 19th century philosophers such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Hobbes. Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article on absolutism In its most extreme form, as practiced in France, Spain, and Russia between the 15th and 18th centuries, absolutism asserts that this unlimited power of the monarch comes directly from God.

According to this theory of the „divine right of kings“, the sovereignty of monarchs is granted by God and not by their subjects, the nobility or any other human source. Absolutism is based on a theory of legislative authority, which holds that monarchs have exclusive and complete legal authority. As a result, the laws of the state are nothing more than an expression of their will. The power of monarchs can only be limited by natural laws, which are practically not limited at all. In ancient Rome, emperors were legally considered „legibus solutus“ or „unrestricted legislators.“ In his classic book Leviathan of 1651, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes clearly defended absolutism. Because of his pessimistic view of human nature and behavior, Hobbes asserted that the only form of government strong enough to contain humanity`s cruel impulses was an absolute monarchy in which kings or queens exercised supreme and unchecked power over their subjects. Hobbes believed that all constitutions, laws, and similar alliances were worthless without absolute monarchical power to force the people to abide by them. „And covenants without the sword are just words and have no power to secure a man,“ he wrote. Nglish: Translating Absolutism for Spanish Speakers The word government ultimately derives from the Greek verb κυβερνάω [kubernáo] (meaning to lead with gubernaculum (oar), with the metaphorical meaning attested in Plato`s state ship). Absolute monarchies were generally justified by two factors; Hereditary rule and divine right to power. The hereditary rule meant that monarchs received their positions as an undeniable advantage of being born into a long family line of monarchs. In medieval Europe, absolute monarchs claimed their power under the theory of the „divine right of kings,“ meaning that the power of monarchs came from God, making it a sin to oppose the king or queen.

The combination of hereditary rule and divine right served to legitimize the power of absolute monarchies by showing that since the people had no say in the choice or empowerment of the king or queen, they could claim to have no control over the reign of the monarch. An emanation of divine law, the Church came, sometimes against the will of her clergy, to support absolute monarchy as a matter of self-preservation. Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms of absolutism absolutism + -ism (in the political sense according to French absolutism) Rhyme dictionary: words that rhyme with absolutism Catherine has made the modernization of Russian cities bordering the rest of Western Europe a priority issue. With the rejection of many influential landowners, their attempts to introduce new legal rights for the serfdom class were largely unsuccessful. His most important contributions, however, were the promotion of art and education. Along with the establishment of the first state-funded women`s college in Europe, he advanced the Russian Enlightenment by promoting music, painting, and architecture. On the other hand, he largely ignored religion and often sold church land to fund his government. On the other hand, after her earlier attempts to reform the feudal system were thwarted, Catherine remained indifferent to the fate of the serf class, which led to a multitude of rebellions during her reign. These sample sentences are automatically selected from various online news sources to reflect the current use of the word „absolutism.“ The views expressed in the examples do not represent the views of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us your feedback. An autocracy is a system of government in which supreme power is concentrated in the hands of a person whose decisions are not subject to external legal restrictions or regulated mechanisms of popular control (except, perhaps, the implicit threat of a coup or mass insurrection). [16] According to a more moderate form of absolutism, as Thomas Hobbes explains, the legislative power of monarchs derives from a „social contract“ between rulers and subjects, in which the people irrevocably transfer power to them.

Although the people have neither the right nor the means to replace monarchs, they can openly oppose them in rare extreme circumstances. While examples of absolutism can be found throughout history, from Julius Caesar to Adolf Hitler, the form that developed in Europe from the 16th to the 18th century is generally regarded as a prototype. King Louis XIV, who ruled the France from 1643 to 1715, is credited with expressing the essence of absolutism when he is said to have declared, „The state is me.“ This word sounds big, but it`s really just an extension of the absolute word. When you have absolute power, you control everything. The problem is that absolutism can only survive through domination, threat of punishment and violence – in other words, tyranny.