Absolutism
Absolutism, political system in which there is no legal, customary, or moral limit on the government's power. The term is generally applied to political systems ruled by a single dictator, but it can also be applied to seemingly democratic systems that grant sweeping powers to the legislature or executive. Absolutism has taken wide-ranging forms such as military dictatorships in Latin America, totalitarian communism in the USSR and Eastern Europe, and dictatorships in Africa. Despite the wide range of forms of absolutism, most 20th-century absolutist regimes have shared a few basic traits. These include centralization of power, close control of social groups, absence of competing political parties, and the outward appearance of popular representation. Louis XIV and Peter I were two monarchs that attempted to incorporate absolutism into their reigns of power. Thus, when one examines the absolute monarchies of both Louis XIV and Peter I it is evident that they achieved their goa! In France, around the middle of the 17th century, a revolution against the current monarch, Cardinal Mazarin, by the various and scattered parlements, who wanted the right to claim royal edicts unconstitutional, and nobilit
------------------------------------------------------------------------ wer for so long that it was unwilling to give it up, while in France, nothing even remotely comparable to Parliament existed to take power away from the monarch. In France, feudal lords fought against the King, while the public supported a strong head of government to keep the peace. In England, a majority of the people supported the Parliament, which had representatives from the middle and low classes, as well as the nobles, and served as a check to the King's power. Had the political institutions of France and England been similar, either a system of parliament or absolutism would have succeeded in both nations. In a world that regarded territory, power, and wealth as paramount, Louis XIV was recognized as a great king. He transformed France into the dominant nation in Europe, expanded its boundaries, and left his heirs secure in their possessions. Louis reached the height of his power in the 1670s, and he protected what he had achieved for the next four decades in the face ! ent into a bureaucratic state with its capital in the newly built city of St. Petersburg. To pay for it he nearly tripled the taxes through various means. The most profitable tax was the head tax in which nearly every Russian male had to pay solely because they lived in Russia". To equip the military, Peter created iron foundries and textile mills. To train it, he hired Western advisors to make up for the lack of Russian expertise. Nearly all of this was done to feed Peter's imperial ambitions. The most important part of Peter's imperialism was the Great Northern War with Sweden, which lasted for nearly his entire reign. As stated in the book Peter the Great and the Modernization of Russia by Thomas Cadeven "through much difficulty Russia eventually won the war with the signing of the Treaty of
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Approximate Word count = 1250
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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