Conference co-organized by Pr Anne Cheng, Chair of Chinese Intellectual History, and Pr Henry Laurens, Chair of Contemporary History of the Arab World.
With the support of the Hugot Foundation.
Symposium
For the Greeks, despotism was the form of government found among Asiatic barbarians who, because they were slaves by nature, voluntarily submitted to an absolute hereditary ruler. Tyranny, on the other hand, was a temporary phenomenon in the history of cities. The concept of Eastern despotism was taken up by Europeans to describe the Ottoman Empire, first as an organized and implacable threat, then as a system of ever-decreasing efficiency. Descriptions of the Soviet system in the 20th century followed these two stages. In the eighteenth century, the reference to despotism wasoftena more or less veiled criticism of European absolute monarchy. On the other hand, the " despotisme éclairé " was used to justify the use of force to establish reforms deemed indispensable. In the last third of the century, it was used to justify plans for colonial conquest in the Old World. This conquest, which was intended to be liberating, ultimately found its justification in enlightened despotism (white man's burden, civilizing mission). The authoritarian modernization of these countries takes up all this discourse, while using an essentialist identity reference. In this way, a discourse produced to justify the domination of others can today serve to perpetuate authoritarian regimes by the powers that govern the countries concerned, rejecting liberal doctrines as foreign.