Many historians would argue that repeated references to "Oriental Despotism" in 18th century Enlightenment scholarship (whether British or French) served rhetorically as a foil specifically to criticize European absolutism, rather than an accurate depiction of Middle Eastern/Asian societies. By setting up a typology of states with constitutional monarchy on the free end and un-Christian despotism on the other, they could state that absolutist tendencies in Europe were intrinsically opposed to the European/Christian spirit. This, however had meaningful implications for non-Europeans when colonial administrators took the images of Oriental despotism reproduced in those texts as accurate depictions of Eastern societies/state practices.

For an example of how this worked with respect to European interpretations of the Qing legal system, see Li Chen, Chinese Law in Imperial Eyes (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016)