| Of course, history has been replete with despotisms and petty dictatorships. |
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| Though the Syrian and Iraqi Baath parties were bitter foes, there was consolation in that both were members of a confederacy of despotisms. |
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| In the modern world it is only despotisms which have recourse to the firing squad or the noose. |
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| This was because refugees and terrorists were widely regarded as freedom fighters, against Continental despotisms. |
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| Machiavelli relied heavily on the dichotomy between republican and princely government, Montesquieu on a trichotomy of republics, monarchies, and despotisms. |
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| The Temple elite did what it took to see that a political charge was made against him and Rome, alive to politics, not theology, did what despotisms do best. |
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| As in so much else, the French revolutionary regime was the precursor of the centralized, totalitarian, managerial, pseudo-democratic despotisms that now reign over the West. |
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| It slathers democracies and despotisms alike in a lavish coat of ceremonial whitewash. |
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| On the contrary, to the extent that they boil politics down to simple power plays, all despotisms betray its spirit, because they are based on confiscation. |
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| Written in a direct and lively style, it denounced the decaying despotisms of Europe and pilloried hereditary monarchy as an absurdity. |
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| This is the picture of an absolute despotism, different from other despotisms only in the element of distance between the despots and their subjects. |
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| The idea that early kingdoms are despotisms in which the people exist only for the sovereign, is wholly inapplicable to the monarchies we are considering. |
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| It is true that whether we live under the most liberal of democracies or the most totalitarian of despotisms, we are being served by appointed officials. |
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