This thesis aims to analyze the early modernization processes in the Ottoman Empire and Iran up to the end of their eventual constitutional revolutions of the early twentieth century in a comparative manner. In looking at the countries&rsquo / modernization processes, it emphasizes the importance of foreign influence &ndash / that of Western powers and Russia. It argues that these processes were a response to the rising socio-political and economic power of the West and Western intrusions into the territories of each state. In the Turkish case, the modernization process was mainly led by the rising Ottoman - Turkish intelligentsia despite the differences between the Young Ottomans, the Young Turks and the Committee of Union and Progress members. In the Iranian case, the modernization process was carried out mainly as a grassroots movement comprising reformist intellectuals, members of the ulema, the bazaaris (merchants), trade guilds people, workers and radical members of secret societies. In view of these aspects of the modernization processes taken in the two states, this thesis reveals that both cases ended up replacing their traditional political system with a constitutional monarchy with the aim of saving and reforming the state. The study of the outcomes of the modernizing process in the two states highlights the dissimilarities which are listed as the engagement in alliance-making and wars with the Great Powers, the role of the military, state bureaucracy, the connection between the ulema and the state and nationalist movements.

The exploration of this thesis on public finance proceeds on two axes. First, it aims at developing an ontological perspective to public finance. Accordingly, public finance is defined to be the concrete political relation between the state and society. The thesis that presents a political and historical evaluation of public finance from a critical sociological and political economy approach associates the components of this definition such as public, the political etc. with the relevant debates in social and political theory. In line with this, the traditional harmony-perspective of neoclassical public finance theories, which is ignorant of the political, is criticized, calling it as &lsquo / police finance&rsquo / instead of &lsquo / public finance&rsquo / . Secondly, the thesis explores the history of fiscal thought between the 15th-19th centuries with special reference to the Ottoman Empire. All in all, with these topics this thesis aims at making a contribution to the field of &ldquo / fiscal sociology&rdquo / from a critical sociological and political economy approach.

In this study the Ottoman built environmet in the last period of the nineteenth century Anatolian city is examined. The study aims to explain the construction of new buildings as well as the transformation of earlier types during the process of contemporary modernization and centralization in the Empire. The main frame of the study is formed of the public and the private spaces that formed the urban built environment, and the transformation of these spaces. The city of Tokat has been chosen as the area of study, which still conserves built structures of the Ottoman as well as the earlier periods that are typical of an Anatolian city of the nineteenth century. Examining the transformation of public buildings and residential architecture in this city, this study emphasizes differences in degress of changes in public and private spaces, and the relation of such transformation with the central authority.

As the powerful visual instruments of modernity, museums have been formulated in multiple narratives under the impact of political ideologies in the modern world. The study aims to analyze the museums of different socio-political contexts of the late Ottoman Empire and the early Turkish Republic comparatively by examining to what extent their buildings, collections, and displaying methods were utilized in the formation of collective identities as part of contemporary imperialist, nationalist, and modernist ideologies. The overall aim of the study is to analyze how history and cultural heritage were perceived and processed for the definition of a common cultural identity in the two different historical contexts by focusing on their display in museums. This study examines pioneering archaeological and ethnographic museums in Turkey, focusing on the Ottoman Imperial Museum [M&uuml / ze-i H&uuml / mayun (1887-1891)], the Museum of Pious Foundations [Evkaf-i Islamiye M&uuml / zesi (1914)], Ankara Ethnographical Museum (1925-1927 / opened in 1930), the non-implemented project including a National Museum (also called as Hittite Museum) (1933), and the Hittite Museum (also known as Eti M&uuml / zesi / and later called as Anatolian Civilizations Museum) (restoration began in 1938)]. In order to provide a critical evaluation, the study utilizes the knowledge produced not only in architecture but also in history, archaeology, ethnography, and museology while analyzing the formation of those museums within their contexts.

D'après la thèse de doctorat--Université de Bâle. / Bibliogr. p. 603-629. Index.

This paper explores the historical development of the Baghdad Railway in the context of international affairs during the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Viewed from the perspectives of businessmen and diplomats, the Railway was an expensive venture with considerable economic and strategic potential. This report provides an overview of the Railway project amid growing apprehension in Europe and Great Britain about German designs. / text

This dissertation reintegrates the Mediterranean into the history of the development of the early modern British Empire. During the seventeenth century, the Mediterranean emerged as a distinct political, legal and commercial space within the wider currents of English expansion. The political and legal regimes of the sea shaped the evolution of the English presence there and the rulers of the Ottoman Empire, the North African regencies, and Italian states such as Tuscany and Genoa limited the expansion of English sovereignty. As a result, the sea offers a different perspective on the history of English expansion than that found in imperial histories set in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The development of the English presence in the Mediterranean highlights the relative weakness of the early modern English state and the extent to which other polities limited the expansion of its sovereign authority. However, this dissertation also aims to move beyond an imperial historiography that distinguishes the wider development of English trade and navigation from the growth of English empire. Through the latter half of the seventeenth century and first half of the eighteenth, the Crown's claims to jurisdiction over its subjects and their ships projected English authority into the Mediterranean. This dissertation examines how the English state extended its authority within a pluralistic maritime environment that lay largely beyond the reach of its claims to empire. By studying the jurisdictional contests that arose when the Crown’s claims to authority over its subjects and their ships collided with the sovereignty of Mediterranean polities, it shows how the intersection of diverse sovereign and legal authorities defined the organization of English trade and navigation. Moreover, as the English state extended its authority overseas during the early modern period, it called into question the location of sovereignty and jurisdictional authority in Mediterranean waters as well as in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. English expansion in the Mediterranean and the political evolution of the sea were part of a global process whereby states and empires sought to establish their authority over oceanic space and networks of trade. / History

This dissertation studies the construction of the marital bond and its dissolution with respect to the normative stipulations of the shari'a, social and moral constructions, and the cultural formations during late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century Istanbul. Through the examination of court cases, estate inventories, and contemporary chronicles, I demonstrate the strategies and practices that perpetrated possible patterns in the matrimonial union. Although Islamic law allowed for and encouraged the spouses to reconcile marriage-related negotiations outside of court, the amount of registered marital disputes indicates the central role of the court for spouses in establishing conciliatory grounds. This study explores in particular the consensual and purposeful use of the shari'a courts by women. The examination of the sicils from three different courts in intra muros Istanbul has shown that women were adamant about formalizing the consequence of marriage, divorce and property related discordances hoping to secure their future interests. The dissertation essentially introduces the largely overlooked issue of the specialization of courts in this period and presents specifically the Dāvud Pasha court’s concentration on marriage and family-related disputes. By focusing on local practices and particularities through a case-by-case methodology, the study delivers a portrayal of Ottoman urban marriage structure within the context of the socio-legal and economic dynamics of the period. Given that the formal registry of marriage contracts and divorce settlements was not legally enforced until the early twentieth century, the extensive practice of registration in court could be interpreted as the preliminary steps to the formalization and codification of the marital union. I offer a likely reading of women’s experiences with respect to marriage and property ownership suggesting that the predominant marriage pattern observed in the segment of the population that used the court was companionate. By analyzing quantitative data and archival material, I demonstrate women’s visibility in the public sphere through their significantly increased use of courts, proactive utilization of social networks, and strategic activities vis-a-vis marriage and divorce to depict a portrayal of the late eighteenth-century Istanbul family.

In 1703, the chief scribe (reisü'l-küttab) Rami Mehmed Efendi (d. 1708) was appointed as the grand vizier in the Ottoman Empire. In scholarship, Rami Mehmed epitomizes the transition in the political cadres from the people of the sword/seyfiye to the people of the pen/kalemiye as the first chief scribe to be appointed as the grand vizier. While this transition has long been accepted as a crucial aspect of eighteenth-century Ottoman history, the cultural and intellectual formation of "the people of the pen" as a distinct community before this period has not been adequately examined.

The dissertation examines the production of knowledge and architecture through the German-sponsored construction of the Ottoman railway network, comprising four discrete projects: the railways of European Turkey, the Anatolian railways, the Baghdad railway and the Hejaz railway and its Palestinian tributaries. The German construction of the Ottoman railway network is an historic event that proffers the opportunity to critically reconsider the epistemological tenets of expertise in broader political, economic and cultural structures distinct from the normative creative processes that dominate the historiography of empires. The dissertation capitalizes on the ambiguous colonial nature of the German role in the architecture, engineering, and urbanism of the late Ottoman empire and situates it as a variegated and occasionally dialogic model of European cultural expansionism by way of a process identified here as ambiguous transmutation.