M. Safa Saraçoğlu, Nineteenth-Century Local Governance in Ottoman Bulgaria: Politics in Provincial Councils

Globalisation and the information revolution are profoundly influencing the division of power within, across, and beyond nation-states. Within nations, this mega change has led to a diminished economic relevance of the intermediate order of government (states and provinces) and an enhanced need for home rule (empowered local governments) in both unitary and federal countries. Considerations of peace, order, and good government further warrant that intermediate orders of governments must assume a relatively less prominent role in multi-order governance. The recent fiscal crisis and the ever-growing concern about corruption have further heightened the need to the get the government right, thereby creating additional pressures to limit the size of the government by possibly downsizing the role of the states/provinces and reconstituting these as provincial councils of local governments to perform inter-local functions and coordination. These economic imperatives, calling for an hourglass model of federalism, are at odds with the political realties in countries conforming to the traditional dual federalism model, i.e., federalism of the provinces model of economic governance as prevalent in Australia, India, Mexico, and Pakistan, among others. The political order in these latter countries has blocked local governments from assuming their due role as the primary agents of the people providing oversight on the shared rule and as facilitators for network governance to improve the economic and social outcomes. Such a role of local government is also critical to international competitiveness and growth as demonstrated by the experiences of China, Japan, Korea, and the Nordic countries. This paper outlines reform options for multi-order governance to conform with the new world economic order. The paper elaborates the role of local governments under ‘glocalised governance’—the new vision of multi-order governance—and argues that growth and economic prosperity of nations in the coming decades would critically depend on how quickly political and institutional impediments to the new (or the oldest?) paradigm of local governance are overcome. The paper concludes that path dependency makes such radical reforms infeasible in countries with strong provincial governments run by feudal, military, and industrial elites.

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Nineteenth-Century Local Governance in Ottoman Bulgaria

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474430999.001.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

M. Safa Saraçoglu

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

State Formation ◽

Local Politics ◽

Local Governance ◽

Security Market ◽

Binary Opposition ◽

Market Order ◽

Capitalist State ◽

Means Of Production

This book explores Ottoman local governance during the liberal-capitalist state formation of the long 19th century (1789-1922) with a particular focus on the administrative and judiciary councils of the Vidin County in the second half of the 19th century. It explains the structure and procedures of these councils and provides an analysis of their function in local politics and economics in addition to an examination of their correspondence and people who worked in the governmental sphere dominated by these councils. Between 1396 and 1878, Vidin was a town under Ottoman administration and became a county centre in the Danube Province when an imperial reform restructured provincial governance and redefined imperial administrative divisions in 1864. The processes explored here focus mostly on the individuals’ rights to the means of production because a majority of the disputes within and petitions from the provinces during the nineteenth century were concerned with property and taxation. Local agents and groups engaged with each other within the judicio-administrative sphere dominated by these councils and sought to advance their interests by using the language, rules and practices of Ottoman governance. This book argues that in 19th century Vidin, we do not see a binary opposition between a state that coerces transformation against a society that opposes reforms. Vidiners, including the notables and the less wealthy inhabitants utilized the judicio-administrative sphere as a hegemonic domain to pursue their strategies as they problematized proper governance (debating matters of property, security, market order and population) as part of Ottoman biopolitics.

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ECOLOGY AND POWER IN THE PERIPHERY OF MAASINA: THE CASE OF THE HAYRE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The Journal of African History ◽

10.1017/s0021853701007873 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 42 (2) ◽

pp. 217-238 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

MIRJAM DE BRUIJN ◽

HAN VAN DIJK

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Resource Management ◽

Natural Resource Management ◽

Natural Resource ◽

Local Governance ◽

Internal Dynamics ◽

Close Study ◽

Eastern Periphery

This article explores political tensions between successive nineteenth-century rulers of the inland delta of the Niger in central Mali (the Fulbe Diina of Hamdullahi and the Futanke successors of al-Hajj Umar) and the pastoral interests of the Fulbe chiefdoms on their eastern periphery, in a region known as the Hayre. A close study of changing forms of local governance and natural resource management demonstrates that although different strategies were employed by the Fulbe and Futanke states to control the Hayre, the internal dynamics of the region can only partly be explained by the influence of these central powers.

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Conclusion

Nineteenth-Century Local Governance in Ottoman Bulgaria ◽

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474430999.003.0007 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 165-174

Author(s):

M. Safa Saraçoglu

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Civil Law ◽

Term Limits ◽

Economic Liberalization ◽

The Political ◽

Market Order ◽

Political Dynamics ◽

Lower Tier ◽

Local Elite ◽

Provincial Councils

This chapter presents the general conclusion of this book: Although the highest tier of Vidin’s local dynasties gradually lost their power vis-à-vis the imperial administration by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the lower-tier elite benefited from cooperation with the Ottoman administration. The Ottoman transformation during the long nineteenth century focused on legitimating the imperial order by establishing limits to governance. Part of this change was the establishment of provincial councils by 1840 as part of an Ottoman governance, which aimed to protect the ‘natural’ market order through civil law. The 1864 and 1871 regulations organised the provincial administrative and judicial councils as separate bodies where the elite’s influence was restrained with term-limits. Yet the notables dominated Vidin’s councils by moving between offices. This led to a connected judicio-adminisrative sphere, dominated by the local elite and reflecting the political dynamics among them. Different agents/groups problematized issues pertaining to security, territory and population within this sphere using technologies of Ottoman governance to pursue their strategies. These councils and Ottoman governance was not serving the elite alone but provided a negotiation platform for different people and alliances in Vidin county in conjunction with economic liberalization of the long-nineteenth century.

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Maritime Piracy, Past and Present

Pirate Lands ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190097394.003.0002 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 19-46

Author(s):

Ursula Daxecker ◽

Brandon Prins

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Political Violence ◽

Local Governance ◽

State Power ◽

Central State ◽

Maritime Piracy ◽

Capacity Limits ◽

Local Elites ◽

The Past

This chapter offers comparisons of historical and contemporary maritime piracy. It examines the conditions that have driven commerce raiding in the past and the present, which include political violence, privation, geographic opportunity, and governance. The chapter notes that imperial competition, legitimacy gaps, and capacity limits drove privateering and piracy up through the nineteenth century. But while legitimacy gaps and capacity limits continue to incentivize piracy today, weak capacity and lack of legitimacy originate within states rather than states being unable to control and regulate the world’s oceans. Contemporary pirates collude with corruptible local elites rather than with far-off imperial powers. The chapter concludes that historical piracy was often an extension of regime capability, while modern pirates stand in opposition to central state power even as they partner with local governance actors to plunder transiting ships.

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‘Le bon public de la Haye’. Local governance and the audience in the French opera in The Hague, 1820–1890

Urban History ◽

10.1017/s0963926813000199 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 40 (4) ◽

pp. 625-645 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

JAN HEIN FURNÉE

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Social Life ◽

Local Governance ◽

Winter Season ◽

Central Position ◽

French Opera ◽

Theatre Architecture ◽

The Hague ◽

Leisure Pursuit ◽

Almost All

ABSTRACT:In nineteenth-century The Hague, the French opera performances in the Royal Theatre were the most important occasions during the winter season at which men and women from almost all social ranks experienced a strong sense of social cohesion in a common leisure pursuit, albeit one in which social hierarchies were clearly demarcated. This article analyses the changing social composition of the opera audience through analysis of subscription and admission records, and evaluates the changing composition of the audience in relation to changes in taste, theatre architecture and policy. Although it was almost impossible to exploit financially and was also a constant object of political, musical and moral criticism, the French opera succeeded in maintaining its central position in The Hague's musical and social life throughout the nineteenth century.

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