Negotiating the Ottoman Constitution 1839-1876

By A Kocunyan

This book traces the transcultural and transnational dimension of theinternal genesis of the Ottoman Constitution, which was promulgated onDecember 23, 1876. It shows that the constitutional processincorporated, from domestic authorities to foreign Powers, a pluralityof formal and informal agents of different ethno-religious, cultural, and ideological backgrounds and that its investigation goes beyond thestudy of a national narrative. Considering the issue of constitutional reforms from different angles(foreign influence and pressure, the agency of domestic actors andthrough discourse analysis of reform decrees), the book brings acritical approach to the existing historiographical narratives, whichreduce Ottoman constitutional history to a simplistic process oftransplanting western legal artefacts and regimes without measuring theselective control of dominant domestic groups over the process. Instead, the book shows the evolution of a continuous set of negotiations ofvarious actors on the idea of constitution in the Ottoman Empire andthus sheds light on the social construction of the idea of justice andconstitutional law. The draft constitutions studied throughout the bookare the textual embodiment of these negotiations and unveil the ways inwhich concepts and issues such as legitimacy, the restriction ofpolitical power, lawful government, liberty, equality, the rule ofpeople and the treatment of minorities reached the Ottoman context andthe ways in which they acquired new meanings or equivalents during theiradaptation to the imperial political culture.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9042935065
• ISBN13: 9789042935068
• Release Date: May 2018
• Publisher: Peeters
• Length: 511 Pages
• Weight: 2.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.4"