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Benevolent Dictators and Enlightened Despots

Name the countries ruled by these leaders who are sometimes considered to be enlightened despots or benevolent dictators.
Some of these countries no longer exist!
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: June 1, 2022
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First submittedOctober 9, 2019
Times taken17,726
Average score61.1%
Rating3.88
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Reign
Ruler
Country
2000–
Paul Kagame
Rwanda
1999–
Abdullah II
Jordan
1970–2020
Qaboos bin Said
Oman
1990 –2019
Nursultan
Nazarbayev
Kazakhstan
1977–2004
France-Albert René
Seychelles
1959–1990
Lee Kuan Yew
Singapore
1953–1980
Josip Broz Tito
Yugoslavia
1963–1979
Park Chung-hee
South Korea
1923–1938
Mustafa Kemal
Atatürk
Turkey
Reign
Ruler
Country
1771–1792
Gustav III
Sweden
1762–1796
Catherine the Great
Russia
1759–1788
Charles III
Spain
1740–1786
Frederick the Great
Prussia
1740–1780
Maria Theresa
Holy Roman
Empire
1537–1574
Cosimo Medici
Tuscany
161–180
Marcus Aurelius
Roman Empire
268 BC–232 BC
Ashoka
Maurya Empire
500s BC
Peisistratus
Athens
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72 Comments
IsleAuHaulte
+6
Level 89
Oct 23, 2019
Just curious, not one of the kings of England was considered benevolent? Or is it just a matter of other questions were chosen?
kalbahamut
+18
Level 82
Nov 29, 2019
The most traditional usage of the term "enlightened despot" or "enlightened monarch" by historians refers mostly to a group of kings and queens who, in the 18th century, were influenced by the ideas of the European Enlightenment into instituting some legal and economic reforms and also tolerating minorities.

By the 18th century the Kingdom of Great Britain was already a constitutional monarchy. George III was sitting on the throne through much of this century, and could be considered an enlightened monarch, but typically is not included as he wasn't really a proper despot.

Quizmaster
+4
Level ∞
Jun 1, 2022
Can't think of any good examples. Elizabeth I was a benevolent ruler but not really an autocrat. Maybe Alfred the Great?
RuthlessCosmo
+3
Level 73
Jul 8, 2022
She had a network of spies to hunt down and punish anyone who opposed her rule, establishing a prototype police state. But she had a great p.r. department and provided England with decades of peace, in between the Wars of the Roses and the Civil War.
JackBeNimble
+12
Level 81
Oct 23, 2019
This should be interesting...
KanzazKyote
+49
Level 88
Oct 24, 2019
Congratulations for what is easily the most controversial quiz ever created
Jacktheguy
+13
Level 90
Jan 5, 2020
And yet there are no massive arguments on the comments of this quiz compared to others. Unless they were all deleted beforehand which could be a possibility.
KanzazKyote
+12
Level 88
Sep 23, 2020
I'm sure that Ashoka's victims do not use Jetpunk. Park and Tito's victims are probably too old, and I'm not entirely sure that they even have what we call "free internet" in Kazakhstan
samiamco
+7
Level 69
Oct 24, 2019
You might want to include the Dalai Lama(s) of Tibet?
WillemLAif
+13
Level 76
Oct 26, 2019
Most of them are hardly benevolent, though, unless you consider slavery, cannibalism and various abuse of power as such. The current one is all jovial and wings quotes like a factory, sounds smart etc, but the history is pretty grim.
Quizmaster
+22
Level ∞
Jan 5, 2020
Easy to be all sunshine and rainbows when you have no actual power.
FinlandForever19
+10
Level 82
Nov 29, 2019
People forget how backwards and horrible Tibet was under the Dalai Lamas. They were far from enlightened.
ChuuroS
+2
Level 60
Jul 8, 2022
The irony lmao
kalbahamut
+1
Level 82
Nov 29, 2019
Got everything except the first one.
kalbahamut
+3
Level 82
Nov 29, 2019
How about Cyrus the Great?
Quizmaster
+5
Level ∞
Jan 5, 2020
I can dig it. But it's hard to say since we know so little about him.
ct
+6
Level 67
Nov 29, 2019
Where is the great Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow ?
HBK97
+3
Level 76
Jul 8, 2022
In Ashgabat
benjaminmarker
+2
Level 72
Jan 5, 2020
No Trump?
TomatosRaafatos
+31
Level 74
Jan 5, 2020
He's neither enlightened nor a despot, so I don't think he meets the minimum requirements.
McKenzieFam
+19
Level 65
Jul 8, 2022
Minimum requirements to be an enlightened despot.

1. You must be enlightened.

2. You must be a despot.

Mountbatten26
+8
Level 58
Jan 5, 2020
Lee Kuan Yew was a very good leader for Singapore, and boosted his little country to a regional power and world trade power. I'm glad to see him on this quizz !
ErenKarakasli
+6
Level 20
Jan 5, 2020
As a turk id like to say this quiz is highly offensive. you cannot put Ataturk in a list of dictators. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was nowhere near a dictator and everyone in Turkey to this day loves and respects the true hero and the patriot he was for Turkey.
tzhg
+19
Level 59
Jan 5, 2020
Ataturk was definitely a dictator, even if that's not what "history" books in your country say. It's always sad to see nationalists getting offended because they don't accept the truth. What are you gonna tell me next ? That the Armenian genocide never existed ?
HBK97
+12
Level 76
Jan 5, 2020
The Armenian genocide had little to do with Mustafa Kemal. And no, current Turkish nationalists don't really like him. Kemalists are mostly liberals and left wing supporters. Some Turkish nationalists pretend to respect Ataturk only because disrespecting him could bring a backlash against them.
tzhg
+13
Level 59
Jun 20, 2020
I never said that the Armenian genocide had anything to do with Ataturk. I simply used it as another example of something historically true (i.e. we have proofs that it actually happened) that is often denied by nationalist narratives which pretend that a particular country (in this case Turkey, but it could be any other country) never did anything wrong. Likewise, many people deny that Ataturk was a dictator although he clearly was, given that Turkey was a single-party state during his very long presidency. He may have been an enlightened one, he may have done good things, but the fact is that he was a dictator.
tzhg
+13
Level 59
Jun 20, 2020
And Kemalists are nationalists. They may be secular, and liberal on certain subjects, but they're still nationalists. Nationalism can be left-wing. Ataturk was a nationalist. He got rid of Islamic laws and heritage, and made nationalism the new religion. That's actually something pretty common, which also happened in other countries, like France after the 1789 revolution. Nationalism is often used as a secular substitute for religion. Nationalists will often criticize the church, but in reality, their ideology relies on lies just as much as religion.
camus
+3
Level 78
Jan 5, 2020
At least he's an enlightened dictator, unlike the current one.
omjplecenc
+2
Level 44
Jan 6, 2020
Says who ? Ataturk is respected by some in the West only because he westernized and secularized Turkey. I cannot call englightment forcing people to dress in western clothes, forcing Muslims to call by a Turkish name instead of the Arabic "Allah", forcing mosques to give the call to prayer in Turkish, preventing women to wear a headscarf in public buildings, closing religious schools or exiling and putting in prison those who opposed secularism (read about Said Nursi for instance).

I will not call Erdogan an angel, but I don't think he repressed more people that Ataturk did. Anyway, this quiz is by nature controversial. One may even call Hitler was englighted depending on their definition.

camus
+14
Level 78
Jan 6, 2020
Do you even know what Enlightenment is? Secularization is one of its key issues. You also neglected to mention women's suffrage and co-education, which Atatürk introduced. Despite his flaws, Atatürk ultimately brought about progress, while Erdogan stands for regression. And that last sentence, wow. Brief summary of Enlightenment: 1) Think for yourself 2) Question authority 3) Extend personal liberties 4) Get rid of censorship 5) Treat people equally regardless of their ethnicity 6) rely on rationalism. Hitler argued and acted against each of these principles. The Nazis were the direct antagonists of enlightened ideas.
omjplecenc
+2
Level 44
Jan 7, 2020
I doubt that any of the 18th century kings listed in this quiz separated the state from the Church. I don't relly think achieving secularization makes a ruler more entitled to be called enlightened, but it's the kind of issues where one is easily biaised.

I know what Enlightenment is but I didn't know enlightened dictator was necessarily linked to it. I thought it was generic like "acting according to noble principles". That's why I voluntarily used a weird example. My bad.

I didn't say Ataturk didn't do anything good but I wanted to point out the fact that he didn't truly advocate for freedom of speech and freedom of religion, which are fundamental rights. Enlightenment was never about forcing people to act according to your opinions because you think you know better than them. One may find many examples of Ataturk going against the 6 points you mentioned, especially 1-4.

ctleng76
+3
Level 65
Jul 8, 2022
I think one mistake many make is assuming enlightened is always accepted as a good thing. Not everyone agrees that being enlightened is good.
MrZiggy49
+1
Level 69
Jan 5, 2020
so sad
wiifly
+5
Level 59
Jul 8, 2022
Ataturk was a dictator it’s just that he didn’t necessarily do stereotypical dictatorial things. Dictators aren’t necessarily bad and enlightened ones like Ataturk often live in a sort of moral grey area among many.
bestanford
+2
Level 71
Jan 5, 2020
Got everyone except Ashoka. For the life of me, all I could think of was "Moria" from LOTR.
AllHailKingHomer
+1
Level 77
Jan 5, 2020
No Pol Pot? Why?
HBK97
+1
Level 76
Jan 5, 2020
Because he's got an ugly name.
TomatosRaafatos
+17
Level 74
Jan 6, 2020
He was responsible for the death of almost a quarter of his country's population. I wouldn't classify that under benevolence.
Findlay
+15
Level 82
Feb 26, 2020
He saved them from having to live under Pol Pot. So there's that.
McKenzieFam
+4
Level 65
Jul 8, 2022
Unfortunately, in our modern world, murdering people is still not benevolent.
AlmostAGenius
+3
Level 81
Jul 8, 2022
Unfortunately?
McKenzieFam
+3
Level 65
Jul 9, 2022
*sarcasm
AllHailKingHomer
+3
Level 77
Jan 5, 2020
Come on, Hitler said he wouldn't stop until Germany was saved and nearly killed himself early on out of frustration for how things were going. That's heart, sort of!
RuthlessCosmo
+7
Level 73
Jul 8, 2022
One thing in his favor: he killed Hitler. If only he had done that 30 years earlier.
McKenzieFam
+2
Level 65
Jul 9, 2022
to paraphrase : Hitler was benevolent. He killed Hitler.
omjplecenc
+4
Level 44
Jan 6, 2020
Since this quiz is already controversial, Muhammad could have been added. No one who held political authority is loved and respected as much as him. The first caliphs are also considered to be benevolent dicators by Muslims, along with a few later figures.
TomatosRaafatos
+4
Level 74
Jan 6, 2020
I can't disagree with that, although that raises a sort of philosophical question: If you are classified as a dictator by the modern sense but you lived in a period before the invention of modern parliamentary democracy, presidential term limits, and constitutional forms of government, are you really a dictator?

Also, it's important to note that the first and fourth Caliphs after Muhammad were directly elected by their peers, and all four of the "rightly-guided" (with the possible exception of Ali) were unanimously accepted by their subjects through the system of "bay'ah", a kind of proto-voting system.

Persian21
+1
Level 40
Jul 19, 2022
Muhammad is one of the Anti-Christs probably, I wouldn't call that good but to each their own
mirtaxsisko
+4
Level 74
Jan 6, 2020
look up Goli otok and then come back and tell me Tito was benevolent
vitriden
+3
Level 82
Dec 28, 2020
The beginning of his rule was undoubtedly brutal with tens of thousands killed and hundreds of thousands imprisoned all around the country. Yet, after the split with Stalin in 1948, and especially from mid-1950s on, when he secured his position as an absolute ruler of Yugoslavia, he slowly shifted his ideology, both globally and locally, and Yugoslav politics became increasingly liberal.
weedlepte
+5
Level 56
Jan 6, 2020
Where are my boys Assad and Gaddafi
Findlay
+6
Level 82
Feb 26, 2020
Nursultan Nazarbayev has human rights abuses mentioned in the introduction to his wikipedia article. Under him Human Rights Watch ranked Kazakhstan as one of the world's twenty worst human rights abusers. I think it's a pretty epic stretch to call him benevolent. I'm curious as to who actually has done so? Just cos Kazakhstan's economy went well under his rule?
cmr0
+2
Level 71
Jul 8, 2022
He did Zhanaozen massacre 2011
cmr0
+1
Level 71
Jul 8, 2022
14+ deaths
JWatson24
+4
Level 71
Nov 23, 2020
Another possibly interesting (albeit not very well known) one is Sheikh Hasina, the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She's done a lot for the country in terms of development and supporting marginalized groups like women and religious minorities, and on the global stage her government been very serious about combating climate change and addressing the Rohingya refugee crisis. She's also rigged elections, jailed opposition figures, and been involved in multiple scandals. Not saying she should be added to this list, just wanted to bring her up (not many other females on this list!).
vitriden
+2
Level 82
Dec 28, 2020
Qaboos bin Said died in January 2020.
ECon211
+11
Level 89
Feb 23, 2021
He's not perfect, but considering some other names on here, Fidel Castro should added. He was committed to egalitarianism and avoiding the destructive aspects of capitalism. Who knows how much better Cuba would be doing if not for the embargo.
JWatson24
+4
Level 71
Mar 23, 2021
^That's a good one.

I'm also rather surprised that no one has brought up Napoleon Bonaparte, especially regarding Napoleonic Code, which may be the epitome of Enlightenment ideals. Ditto for Napoleon III, who was perhaps even more benevolent than his uncle without the bloodthirstiness.

cmr0
+1
Level 71
Jul 8, 2022
Then, they would be ordinary Central American country like El Salvador or Honduras. But even if Panama or Dominican Republic, it's not much better than now. Under socialist rule they definitely have stability and better healthcare, but without soviet help Cuba seems very weak in terms of economy
nojik
+3
Level 67
Jul 8, 2022
nice try tankie
howard38
+3
Level 61
Jul 9, 2022
Or how much better Cuba would be doing if Castro allowed free elections.
yellowbomb
+4
Level 66
Jul 8, 2022
How about Michael Bates, absolute king of Sealand? I don't remember hearing of his oppression of anyone...
McKenzieFam
+1
Level 65
Jul 8, 2022
Yes! sealand!
nojik
+2
Level 67
Jul 8, 2022
WTF does Good Dictator mean?

1 star.

MungoJerry
+3
Level 56
Jul 8, 2022
Not every country holds the same values and beliefs as the West. Be respectful
howard38
+2
Level 61
Jul 9, 2022
What is the world coming to when people start disrespecting dictators?
ElijahCaine
+1
Level 50
Jul 10, 2022
A dictator that people like :D
bn91
+1
Level 70
Jul 8, 2022
Where is Barack Obama?
Odi
+1
Level 44
Jul 8, 2022
Qaboos is literally the only reason Oman isnt a complete mess right now
howard38
+1
Level 61
Jul 9, 2022
The quiz is not legitimate without Haffaz Aladdin.
ElijahCaine
+1
Level 50
Jul 10, 2022
I recommend adding Omar Torrijos for Panama. He renegotiated the canal treaty with Jimmy Carter and Panamanians think of him as an FDR or a Ronald Reagan
MCdoesgeography
+1
Level 69
Nov 8, 2023
No Gaddafi?
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