A ‘Military Rule’ as a specific (occidental) type of despotism in Montesquieu’s Theory

„Vojničku vladavinu” Monteskje je spominjao u sva tri svoja glavna dela: i u Persijskim pismima, i u Razmatranjima o uzrocima veličine Rimljana i njihove propasti i u spisu O duhu zakona. Međutim, samo je u poslednjem delu ovu proglasio za poseban tip despotije. Taj tip despotije Monteskje je razmotrio na primeru starog Rima i došao do zaključka da se značajno razlikuje od onoga što je obično podrazumevao pod despotijom – onom orijentalnom. Dok je, naime, orijentalna despotija bezvremena, jednostavna i lišena bilo kakve predstave o slobodi, „vojničku vladavinu” kao okcidentalan tip despotije karakterisali bi upravo naglašena kompleksnost i istoričnost u kontekstu pervertiranja slobode: ona bi se mogla razumeti samo kao ishod determinizma koji vodi od urušavanja monarhije preko aristokratske i demokratske republike.Montesquieu writes about “military rule” in all of his three main works: in the Persian Letters, in Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans, as well as his magnum opus On the Spirit of the Laws. However, only in the last work he defined it as a special type of despotism. Montesquieu analyses this type of despotism by reference to ancient Rome and comes to a conclusion that the Roman example differed significantly from what he usually meant by despotism – that is oriental despotism. He claims, namely, that oriental despotism could be perceived as timeless, simple and devoid of any notion of freedom, while “military rule”, as “occidental” type of despotism, would be characterized by its complexity and historicity in the context of perversion of freedom. The “occidental” type of despotism, claims Montesquieu, could be understood only as a stage in a deterministic political development that starts with a collapse of the monarchy that is itself a result of a collapse of the aristocratic and democratic republic