Oriental despotism
{{short description|Political concept that Asian countries tend to be more authoritarian}}
{{For|the 1957 book by Karl August Wittfogel|Oriental Despotism}}
Oriental despotism refers to the Western view of Asian societies as politically or morally more susceptible to despotic rule, and therefore different from the democratic West. This view is often pejorative.{{Cite journal |last=Rubiés |first=Joan-Pau |date=2005 |title=Oriental Despotism and European Orientalism: Botero to Montesquieu |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/jemh/9/1-2/article-p109_4.xml |journal=Journal of Early Modern History |language=en |volume=9 |issue=1-2 |pages=109–180 |doi=10.1163/1570065054300275 |issn=1385-3783}}{{Cite journal |last=Yoon |first=Kate |date=2023 |title=Oriental Despotism and the Limits of Doux Commerce, from Montesquieu to Raynal |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00905917221134718 |journal=Political Theory |language=en |volume=51 |issue=3 |pages=456–480 |doi=10.1177/00905917221134718 |issn=0090-5917}} The term is often associated with Karl August Wittfogel's 1957 book Oriental Despotism.{{Cite journal |last=Mote |first=F. W. |date=1961 |title=The Growth of Chinese despotism: A critique of Wittfogel's theory of Oriental Despotism as applied to China |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43382295 |journal=Oriens Extremus |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=1–41 |issn=0030-5197}}