Tanzimat kurumları aracılığıyla pazarlık: Geç Dönem Osmanlı imparatorluğunda Bosna Meclis-i Umumisi örneği

This thesis examines the consolidation of the Bosnian General Council after the promulgation of the Provincial Regulation in 1867. It focuses on relations between the council representatives and different segments of the state mechanism—local state officials and the Council of State or Conseil d'État (Şura-yı Devlet)—in the form of requests, offers and responses negotiating the resolution of socio-economic, educational, security-related, and infrastructural problems. The study considers the relevance to council functioning of socio-spatial contexts and historical temporalities—including a comparison of the Bosnian council with those of Crete, Sivas, and Trabzon—and looks at the functioning of the council in terms of its role as a modernizing institution of governance. Set in the context of the adaptation of the region and (newly created) province of Bosnia to the Tanzimat reforms, the general council was established with the aim of promoting development in the territory. The provincial councils are generally overlooked in the literature because of their lack of executive powers, yet the council in Bosnia is here found to have been a significant administrative organ that functioned quite well, both in terms on the program of imperial administration and in tacking immediate problems. Although some deeper, structural issues were avoided, the strategic location of this province effectively gave the council representatives considerable leverage with the center. This becomes evident in the comparative case study with the differences between the four provinces considered; indeed, various dependent variables shaped the agendas and fortunes of these councils. Regarding the pressing issue of civic and infrastructural development in the struggling empire, this research also claims that the council in Bosnia acted as a state-supported institution for the replacement of the deficient waqfs and Ayans, which had been losing ground during the nineteenth century as a result of the empire-wide financial reforms aimed at fiscal centralization. Inspection of the specific cases adjudged by the Bosnian council reveals that it promoted a donation-based economy for local development by dividing the burden of projects among many rather than a few. This enabled the central government to undermine the local powerholders, making the Ottoman central government a major actor in Bosnia's development through its controlling mechanism. Finally, therefore, this study presents a challenge to the standard assumption that the provincial general councils were ineffective and unimportant institutions. Keywords: Bosnia, the Tanzimat, provincial general councils, Ottoman central administration, infrastructural development, negotiation.