The Dispersed West. The Poisoned Apple of Oriental Despotism

What is despotism today? And why is it once again threatening liberal democracies? In Western culture, despotism—that is, political power analogous to the power a master exercises over servants—has for centuries been regarded as the form of government characteristic of Asian or Eurasian empires. Opposed to it stands moderate government, which finds its fullest expression in the constitutional democracies of post-war Europe. Today, in the dark and chaotic epochal transition we are going through, this "masterpiece of legislation" is once again under attack: major powers aim to undermine constitutional democracies and to design a new global order in their own image and likeness. To save liberal democracy, at least in Europe, we must pass through a narrow door: abandoning both a wishful cosmopolitanism and the remnants of nationalism, and initiating a rapid process of transforming the institutions of the European Union in a federal direction.