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This paper examines the constitution and transformation of the political regime in the Ottoman Empire in the latter half of the 19th and early 20th century. It argues that our understanding of the transitional stages between the end of empires and the formation of new states continues to be analytically underdeveloped, particularly in the context of Eastern/Southeastern Europe. Drawing on recent scholarship, which challenges the existing dichotomous empire-to-nation model and suggests furthering studies on the transition period, the paper offers a close-up look at the role of transnational ideologies played during the transition from empire-to-nation. It highlights the existence of a rather complex interplay between national and transnational ideologies. It argues that understanding the role of transnational ideologies allows us to attribute more agency to the political actors of the late Ottoman era, helping model the changes that happened in the state's legitimacy, the ideological transformations, and the political mobilization of the elites in this period. Focusing on the Ottoman case, it sheds insights on both Habsburg and Russian Empires, which exhibited similar characteristics at that time. It also illustrates the role that transnational ideologies played in all three cases.

The traditional postcolonial focus on the modern and the European, and pre-modern and non-European empires has marginalized the study of empires like the Ottoman Empire whose temporal reign traversed the modern and pre-modern eras, and its geographical land mass covered parts of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Asia Minor, the Arabian Peninsula, and North Africa. Here, I first place the three postcolonial corollaries of the prioritization of contemporary inequality, the determination of its historical origins, and the target of its eventual elimination in conversation with the Ottoman Empire. I then discuss and articulate the two ensuing criticisms concerning the role of Islam and the fluidity of identities in states and societies. I argue that epistemologically, postcolonial studies criticize the European representations of Islam, but do not take the next step of generating alternate knowledge by engaging in empirical studies of Islamic empires like the Ottoman Empire. Ontologically, postcolonial studies draw strict official and unofficial lines between the European colonizer and the non-European colonized, yet such a clear-cut divide does not hold in the case of the Ottoman Empire where the lines were much more nuanced and identities much more fluid. Still, I argue that contemporary studies on the Ottoman Empire productively intersect with the postcolonial approach in three research areas: the exploration of the agency of imperial subjects; the deconstruction of the imperial center; and the articulation of bases of imperial domination other than the conventional European “rule of colonial difference” strictly predicated on race. I conclude with a call for an analysis of Ottoman postcoloniality in comparison to others such as the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, Persian, Chinese, Mughal, and Japanese that negotiated modernity in a similar manner with the explicit intent to generate knowledge not influenced by the Western European historical experience.

A newly discovered energy source is expected to make a positive contribution to the economic growth of the country. To some extent, it is even thought that this is the underlying difference between developed and developing countries today. However, in history, it is seen that the countries that find new energy sources are not always able to benefit from it. The state mechanism without the necessary financial institutions and absence of dynamic economic and commercial life may lead to the inability to benefit from the newly found energy source. In this study, we will compare two nineteenth-century empires, Ottoman and British, which found coal in their homeland. As history as shown, we argue that the political institutions and the state reflexes are critical when it comes to utilizing a newly found energy source.

Ahmet Kuru, in his book, suggests that the explanation for the lack of social and political development in the modern world can be traced back to a historical ‘state-ulama alliance’ from the 11th-century Saljuq empire or earlier. From the perspective of an historian, however, this dating displays some empirical problems. It is certain that the state eventually did gain the upper hand over the Muslim intellectuals, at least in the centre of the Ottoman empire. But the process to that point was different. In this comment, a different explanation is proposed that points instead to two crucial factors: the loss of a homogeneous Muslim state with the fall of the caliphate, and the rise of a unified Muslim world, an umma, through the independence, not subservience, of the class of scholars in the mediaeval period of Islam. Thus, a model is proposed that focuses on two turning points: the replacement of the effective caliphate with a fractious system of sultanates in the mid-tenth century, coinciding with the solidification of Islamic thought in a more strictly regulated form both in theology, law and in Sufism. The second moment is ca. 1500, when the period of political fragmentation comes to an end with the Ottoman state unifying the Middle East, flanked by Morocco and Iran, while challenges to the religious orthodoxy begin to grow at the margins. Such a model thus sees the ulama as actors for change as well as for orthodoxy throughout Muslim history, responding to changing developments in social and political contexts.

The European states, which started the industrial revolution by making use of mechanical power, provided their agricultural development by producing new technology tools that will increase the production in the agricultural sector. The Ottoman Empire made many attempts to increase agricultural sector in the nineteenth century and implemented policies to increase production. In this direction, primitive agricultural tools were changed, and many encouraging steps were taken to adopt and spread modern technology in the country. As a result of the policies made, since the second half of the nineteenth century, the use of modern technology has increased in the provinces such as İzmir, Edirne and Adana and then in Konya and Ankara, since the railways reached the interior. Increasing accessibility to international markets with the development of commercial agriculture and railway construction are also important factors that encourage the use of machinery. When the use of machinery increased in the twentieth century, many machine companies opened dealers in the country and attempted to reach the inner parts of the country. With the increase in the use of modern agricultural technology, agricultural production has increased and provided significant benefits to the labor problem, especially in regions where commercial agriculture has developed. The effect of modern technology on the increase in production can be seen in the agricultural numbers in 1909–1914. When the agricultural census is taken into consideration, although the production areas did not increase, the production amount increased. However, the contribution of modern agricultural technology to production was still somewhat limited. The reason for this is that due to the high prices of agricultural machinery, small farm owners cannot supply these machines.

The seminal literature on state formation proposes a model of “co-opt and expand” to explain the rise of centralized nation-states in modern and early modern Europe. Building on this literature’s distinction between direct and indirect rule, other analysts have expanded the scope of this model to explain patterns of state building in the non-Western world, particularly in the construction of centralized authority in postcolonial and postimperial contexts. According to this literature, the failure of central rulers to co-opt local elites has frequently produced weak states lacking capacities of rule in their peripheries. Using archival materials to examine the Albanian state’s relatively successful penetration of the country’s highland communities during its early decades of national independence, this article suggests that state building can proceed along an alternative path called “co-opt and bind,” in which state builders “bind” peasant communal institutions to the institutional idea of the nation-state to legitimize and implement state building goals. The article identifies three mechanisms used by early Albanian state builders to generate legitimacy and institute political order in its remote communities, including disarmament, the institution of new forms of economic dependency, and the invocation of peasant cultural codes of honor.

In this study, we aim to understand how the relationship between state and business elites and underlying power dynamics develop in the face of neoliberalism and globalization in a state-dependent context. For this purpose, we draw on a qualitative research with in-depth interviews with elites from 65 companies which are ranked among the 500 largest Turkish firms by the Istanbul Chamber of Industry. Major contribution of this work is that we illustrate how globalization or internationalization provides a limited tool for business elites to escape the domination of the state in a state-dependent context. The only exceptions to this rule of state domination among business elites are the elites who hold double citizenships and whose initial investment background is in a foreign country. This exceptional group of elites enjoyed higher latitude of action in their interactions with the state. For the rest, state remains as an influential mechanism of coercive power to which elites are subjected. Last but not least, in spite of the connections between business growth and the state, the business elites are generally distrustful of politics and politicians and this mistrust is manifested in different ways. Overall, we illustrate the significance of the historical context and turning points in accounting for the changing nature of the relationship between elites and the state in Turkey.

Political Science in the United States has focused too much on variable-oriented, quantitative methods and thus lost its ability to ask “big questions.” Stein Rokkan (d. 1979) was an eminent comparativist who asked big questions and provided such qualitative tools as conceptual maps, grids, and clustered comparisons. Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), arguably the first social scientist, also asked big questions and provided a universal explanation about the dialectical relationship between nomads and sedentary people. This article analyzes to what extent Ibn Khaldun's concepts of asabiyya and sedentary culture help understand the rise and fall of the Muslim civilization. It also explores my alternative, class-based perspective in Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment. Moreover, the article explores how Rokkan's analysis of cultural, geographical, economic, and religio-political variations within Western European states can provide insights to the examination of such variations in the Muslim world.

The aim of this paper is to understand the possible role of critical accounts of management in a developing country like Turkey, when the origin of the dominant critical theories is the global North, particularly Europe.

This study uses a broadly historical and institutional approach, as well as the local experiences of the first author.

On the basis of the discussion the authors suggest that current forms of critical management are unlikely to find a home in Turkey for various reasons, hence, they argue that there is a need for local knowledge production rather than importation.

This paper presents a view of what it means to be “critical” from the perspective of a developing country, and a consideration of the role of a critical scholar in a context in which local priorities might be more important than theoretical elaboration.

This year's volume of Political Power and Social Theory marks the end of my tenure as editor of this esteemed journal, truly. Although I composed a very similar sentence a year ago, circumstances beyond my control delayed the transition. Thankfully, our new incoming editor, Professor Julian Go, from the Department of Sociology at Boston University, has already started his tenure as this volume goes to press. In addition to undertaking the review of pending and current incoming manuscripts, he also has contributed to this year's volume by agreeing to guest-edit a special section on empire and colonialism. On behalf of the entire editorial board and our readership, I thank Julian for his work on this volume, welcome him to the helm, and wish him well in future volumes. I look forward to continuing my own commitment to PPST as just another member of the editorial board. In the meantime, we can expect some new ideas and new blood in the editorial board as Julian takes over the journal and moves it in new directions. It is an exciting time to consider changes in the field of comparative-historical sociology, as the discipline seeks to accommodate both old and new trends as well as the transforming spatial scales in which political power and social theory are increasingly embedded.