Düyun-u Umumiyye idaresi: Güven duyusu ve vergi kaçakçılığıyla mücadele

After a period of increasing domestic and foreign indebtness the Ottoman Empire bankrupted in 1875. In 1881, the Ottoman government signed an agreement, the Decree of Muharrem, with its creditors. The Decree envisioned the foundation of the Administration of Ottoman Public Debt (AOPD) and gave it the authority to collect and administer certain Ottoman revenues. The objective of this thesis is to understand this institution?s interaction with Western European capitalism and the Ottoman society. After a discussion of Ottoman integration into the world capitalist economy and the AOPD?s role in this integration, this thesis argues that the AOPD was founded at a time when the Great Powers was considering the Ottoman Empire as the target of capitalist penetration while the European capitalist investors lost their credence in profitable investment in the former due to the financial bankruptcy. Based on a research in the British archives this study suggests that the AOPD attempted to provide a sense of security to the Great Powers and to the capitalist investors to convince them that investing in the Ottoman Empire was a profitable enterprise. Secondly, I focus on the AOPD?s relation to its Ottoman officers and to the Ottoman taxpayers. Based on a reading of published and non-published documents from the Ottoman archives this thesis describes the AOPD?s effort to prevent tax evasion while the taxpayers developed sundry means of tax evasion.