The phrase "a despotism of" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a situation or system characterized by oppressive or tyrannical rule, often in a political context.
Example: "The regime established a despotism of fear, suppressing any dissent and controlling the populace through intimidation."
Alternatives: "a tyranny of" or "an oppression of".
But Montesquieu tells us, virtue in a republic, is a love of the republic; virtue in a democracy, is a love of the democracy; and why might he not have said, that virtue in a monarchy is a love of the monarchy; in a despotism, of the despot; in a mixed government, of the mixture?
He seems to forget that one of Britain's two main allies was the Russia of Tsar Nicholas II, a despotism of no mean order, far more authoritarian than the Kaiser's Germany.
In a striking and prescient phrase, Chateaubriand prophesied the "despotism of his memory", a despotism of the fantastical that in many ways made Romanticism possible and that continues to this day.
Fearful of what they considered a new despotism of the wealthy, modern liberals advocated government regulation of markets and major industries, heavier taxation of the rich, the legalization of trade unions, and the introduction of various government-funded social services, such as mandatory accident insurance.
There is an astonishing chapter in "Democracy" called "What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear," where he struggles to define a paternal, invisible despotism of entertainments: "Above these citizens an immense tutelary power is elevated, which alone takes charge of assuring their enjoyments... but seeks only to keep them fixed irrevocably in childhood".
The air is filled with wails, cries and ululations, suggesting a despotism founded on the grief of others.
Once the player builds the Senate building, he or she may choose a government "upgrade" of either a Despotism or a Republic, each giving the player a different permanent gameplay bonus.
He feared a kind of mindless, dependent American, and he feared the invisible despotism of a managed state.
The Bastille, stormed by an armed mob of Parisians in the opening days of the French Revolution, was a symbol of the despotism of the ruling Bourbon monarchy and held an important place in the ideology of the Revolution.
Tocqueville warned that these laws would run the risk of creating despotism of a different sort, administered by lawyers and politicians who acted not like "tyrants but rather schoolmasters".
The ideology of the early pioneers oscillated between a kind of pragmatic anarchism and a belief in the benevolent despotism of engineers, where the final judgments would be made by those who best understood the technology.
