absolutism, absolutist state The term itself may be defined as a state-form typical of societies in the process of transition from feudalism to capitalism , wherein power is concentrated in the person of a monarch, who has at his or her disposal a centralized administrative apparatus. Viewed thus, the label has been applied to a wide variety of states , ranging from that of the sixteenth-century English Tudors to that of nineteenth-century Meiji Japan. This definition is, however, not uncontroversial: the label has also been applied to Tsarist Russia, where the transition was from feudalism to communism , and some would deny that Japan was ever a feudal society in anything other than ...

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