Tax revolts in the Late Ottoman Empire: Conflict, negotiation, pacification 1876-1908

This dissertation examines the reactions of the Ottoman society against the new taxes implemented in the beginning of the 20th century and the provincial governors during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II by focusing on the various repertoires of the society. The dissertation analyzes the centralization re- forms of the central bureaucracy from Tanzimat to 1908 and traces the reactions of the urban society as the negotiation practices with the state bureaucracy to define the limits of central power in the provinces. Further- more it analyzes how the dynamics of urban politics were shaped in the Ottoman borderlands during the late Ottoman Empire. Based on Ottoman and British sources this study demonstrates that the fiscal and political centralization of the empire was not a top-down process but a result of the bargaining process between various actors of the empire. This study illustrates this point by focusing on the resistance against the new taxes, the problems caused by social, economic and climate conditions and centralization reforms of the local bureaucracy in Kosovo, Erzurum, Bitlis provinces and the cities around them. In that sense, this study is a contribution to the Ottoman social, cultural and economic history of the Ottoman borderland.