Ali Yaycioglu

Partners of the Empire (eBook, ePUB)

The Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age of Revolutions

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Partners of the Empire offers a radical rethinking of the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Over this unstable period, the Ottoman Empire faced political crises, institutional shakeups, and popular insurrections. It responded through various reform options and settlements. New institutional configurations emerged; constitutional texts were codified-and annulled. The empire became a political theater where different actors struggled, collaborated, and competed on conflicting agendas and opposing interests.

This book takes a holistic look at the era, interested not simply in central reforms or in regional developments, but in their interactions. Drawing on original archival sources, Ali Yaycioglu uncovers the patterns of political action-the making and unmaking of coalitions, forms of building and losing power, and expressions of public opinion. Countering common assumptions, he shows that the Ottoman transformation in the Age of Revolutions was not a linear transition from the old order to the new, from decentralized state to centralized, from Eastern to Western institutions, or from pre-modern to modern. Rather, it was a condensed period of transformation that counted many crossing paths, as well as dead-ends, all of which offered a rich repertoire of governing possibilities to be followed, reinterpreted, or ultimately forgotten.

---

Dieser Download kann aus rechtlichen Gründen nur mit Rechnungsadresse in A, D ausgeliefert werden.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 368
• Erscheinungstermin: 3. Mai 2016
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780804798389
• Artikelnr.: 48420285

Autorenporträt

Ali Yaycioglu is Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
Introduction:
chapter abstract
The introduction of the book engages in a discussion on the growing
historiography of the global age of revolutions and recent debates about
the transformation of the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries. It argues that the global context helps us to
understand the transformation of the Ottoman Empire in a more comparative
and connected fashion and at the same time the Ottoman experience helps us
to see the global context in a more synchronic and less linear way.
1Empire: Order, Crisis, and Reform, 1700-1806
chapter abstract
This chapter offers a brief sketch of the Ottoman world in the eighteenth
century and examines the New Order, a set of reform agendas proposed by the
Ottoman imperial elite to bring military and fiscal crisis to an end. Some
of these reform agendas threatened segments of society, particularly those
who endorsed the political claims of the Janissaries. It argues that
neither the New Order nor the opposition were monolithic groups, but large
coalitions with branches in the provinces, diverse positions, and various
interests.
2The Notables: Governance, Power, and Wealth
chapter abstract
This chapter discusses the nature of the relationship between the
provincial elite and the empire in the late eighteenth/early nineteenth
centuries. It argues that throughout the eighteenth century provincial
notables came to act as fiscal, administrative, and military entrepreneurs
who engaged in formal or informal contractual relations with the empire.
These contractual relations were based on offers, acceptances, rejections,
and counteroffers in a volatile arena, without the formal security of
contract, status, property, and life. The process gradually produced a new
order of notables: the empire was run by partnerships between central and
provincial elites. Some provincial notables joined the coalition of the New
Order, while others acted with the opposition
3Communities: Collective Action, Leadership, and Politics
chapter abstract
Chapter Three analyzes the ways in which provincial communities responded
to changes in the eighteenth century. It argues that while the central
administration was disconnected from the provinces and outsourced authority
to provincial notables, provincial communities developed bottom-up
mechanisms to manage fiscal and administrative matters under the
supervision of elected or communally nominated notables. Instead of
reversing this participatory and electoral process and launching a
centralizing policy, the central administration institutionalized bottom-up
collective actions. In the new provincial order, collective action became a
source of legitimacy. Provincial communities were becoming political
actors-sometimes with and sometimes at expense of notables-in governance.
4Crisis: Riots, Conspiracies, and Revolutions, 1806-1808
chapter abstract
This chapter shifts to a narrative history of the events that took place
between August 1806 and November 1808. Stories from previous chapters
converge in Chapter Four, highlighting popular opposition to the New Order
led by the Janissaries, shifting coalitions between provincial and imperial
elites, growing politicization of the communities, and the trans-imperial
story of the Napoleonic wars and wartime diplomacy. A series of
contingencies, shifting alliances, and dead-ends led to the eventual
collapse of The New Order due to a Janissary led popular revolt in 1807,
after which government was restored.
5Settlement: The Deed of Alliance and the Empire of Trust (1808)
chapter abstract
This chapter presents a textual analysis of the Deed of Alliance. Close
reading of the text, combined with commentary, is followed by a discussion
of the document's reception in modern history and its place among other
constitutional texts from the Age of Revolutions. A political coalition
formed between the elites of the New Order and a group of provincial
notables for a coup d'état to restore the New Order. This coalition
manifested itself in the Deed of Alliance, which envisioned a new imperial
order based on partnership, security, stability (instead of volatility),
and trust among elites. The Deed was a constitutional synthesis of the New
Order and order of notables.
Conclusion:
chapter abstract
The conclusion provides a perspective on the nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century transformation of the Ottoman order. It argues that the
structural developments that appeared in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries, namely fiscal-military and administrative reform, the
development of negotiational relations between the central government and
the provincial notables, and the increasing participation of the
communities in governance shaped the transformation in modern times until
the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the formation of modern
nation-states in the Balkans and the Middle East.