Bandits and Bureaucrats The Ottoman Route to State Centralization |
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| Author:
| Barkey, Karen |
| Series title: | The Wilder House Series in Politics, History, and Culture |
| ISBN: | 978-0-8014-8419-3 |
| Publication Date: | Dec 1996 |
| Publisher: | Cornell University Press
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| Book Format: | Paperback |
| List Price: | AUD $62.99 |
Book Description:
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Why did the main challenge to the Ottoman state come not in peasant or elite rebellions, but in endemic banditry? Karen Barkey shows how Turkish strategies of incorporating peasants and rotating elites kept both groups dependent on the state, unable and unwilling to rebel. Bandits, formerly mercenary soldiers, were not interested in rebellion but concentrated on trying to gain state resources, more as rogue clients than as primitive rebels. The state's ability to control and...
More Description
Why did the main challenge to the Ottoman state come not in peasant or elite rebellions, but in endemic banditry? Karen Barkey shows how Turkish strategies of incorporating peasants and rotating elites kept both groups dependent on the state, unable and unwilling to rebel. Bandits, formerly mercenary soldiers, were not interested in rebellion but concentrated on trying to gain state resources, more as rogue clients than as primitive rebels. The state's ability to control and manipulate bandits?through deals, bargains and patronage?suggests imperial strength rather than weakness, she maintains.