A historical, comparative approach to state formation in Europe and the Ottoman Empire: From the Medieval ages to the modern era

This thesis starts from a dissatisfaction with essentialistic approaches to the formation of modern nation-states in Europe and across the former territories of the Ottoman Empire. There has always been a Eurocentrist tendency to create a dichotomy of feudalism vs non-feudalism (or Oriental Despotism, or the Asiatic Mode of Production), and to derive or deduce all subsequent development from these supposedly unchanging identities. This is a fundamentally monocausal perspective. It overlooks the contingent, multifactoral unfolding of history. Against it, I follow a historical sociology that is not strictly deterministic, but allows for accidents, including mistakes on the part of (and from the perspective of) the various actors involved. Thus an attempt is made to look beyond the basic historical fact of fief-based states in both East and West, to the different power configurations resulting therefrom. To that beginning, I add, first, the impact of the Military Revolution on the genesis of the modern state. Second, I add the impact of Nationalism, filling up existing containers with new content to go from the modern state to the nation-state. Third, by bringing in imperialism and colonialism, I try to go outside Europe to see what happened elsewhere. This kind of comparative exercise is a valid sub-field for civilization studies.