“The policies of enlightened despots had little impact on their subjects.” Discuss with reference to two enlightened despots.

The question requires that candidates offer a considered and balanced review of the statement. Candidates could choose to agree, disagree or partially agree depending on their chosen exemplars. The two chosen despots may or may not have been contemporaneous with one another. Candidates may choose to approach the question by identifying some key enlightenment ideas and establish how far they were adopted. When discussing “impact”, areas to consider could be social structure, civil rights, wealth distribution and developments in areas such as science. Some may argue that the policies of “enlightened despots” were driven by the desire to maintain their own power and the security of the nation. It may also be argued that their policies had very little impact on most of the population with “impact” being limited to a relatively small proportion of the population. Impact of policies may extend beyond the timeframe but it must be clearly linked to the policies of the chosen exemplars.