The West-civilizes-the-Eastern-despot claim chains climate theory through Orientalism to modernization theory
Evidence
The classic version of this frame states that Islamic “civilization” is not capable of democracy and that it can only produce despotism. As we saw in Chapter 1, the notion of “Oriental despotism” was developed in the eighteenth century by writers like Montesquieu, who argued that the hot climate of the East made Orientals submissive and thus unable to resist tyranny. Orientalists put this theory on a seemingly sounder academic footing by stating that despotism was one of the core values of “Islamic civilization” and that political revolution and resistance to bad government was alien to Arab and Muslim cultures. Modernization theory made this notion more scientific by suggesting that “traditional” societies were characterized by hierarchical systems of power. Thus, change would never come from within, and it was the burden of the West to civilize, modernize, and democratize the East. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 360
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Traced lineage from Montesquieu through Orientalism to modernization theory; ties to reader’s ch6/ch8/ch18 notes on the incapacity-for-democracy frame descendant chain.
Related
- Montesquieu’s discredited climate theory birthed the enduring myth that Eastern peoples suit dictatorship (similarity 0.91)
- The idea that Eastern peoples cannot self-govern developed in the Enlightenment and persisted. (similarity 0.90)
- Climate-based theories of Oriental despotism still shape Western views of the region (similarity 0.89)
- Montesquieu’s climate theory of Oriental despotism still shapes Western views today (similarity 0.88)
- Every imperial power since the Enlightenment has invoked the white man’s burden (similarity 0.83)
- Casting the East as static and despotic logically licensed western intervention (similarity 0.80)
- Orientalists reframed Islam as a political system rather than a religion. (similarity 0.80)
- Institutional Orientalism rests on four interlocking civilizational assumptions about stagnant Eastern societies (similarity 0.80)
- Modernization theory justified empire by framing other societies as needing outside intervention (similarity 0.80)
- Postwar US empire was legitimated through modernization theory and Orientalism (similarity 0.79)
- Orientalism is a political doctrine arising from Western dominance (similarity 0.79)
- The Orientals-cannot-self-govern claim runs from Oriental despotism through modernization theory (similarity 0.78)
- Orientalist assumptions restrict non-Western history to relations with the West (similarity 0.78)
- European Orientalism was normalized into a coherent US scholarly consensus (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Montesquieu’s climate theory of Oriental despotism still shapes Western views today
#corroborates(0.95) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 184