The Devshirme System and the Levied Children of Bursa in 1603-4

Belleten ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 79 (286) ◽  
pp. 901-930
Author(s):  
Gülay Yılmaz
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Local Level ◽  
System Function ◽  
Court Records

This paper addresses two main questions in regards to the devshirme system: how did the devshirme system function at a local level and how were local politics triggered by the levy; and what were the experiences of the children who were levied. Utilizing a unique register called sürü defter that lists children who were levied in 1603-4, the system is traced in the region of Bursa in 1603-4. The mühimme defters and court records from Bursa are also referenced. Besides examining the bureaucratic implications of carrying out the devshirme, one of the important questions addressed is what did it mean to be a Christian child in the early modern Ottoman world. Issues such as who these children were, how they were selected as devshirmes, and how they reacted to being selected or not, are considered here. The paper shows that reactions to the child-levy by the families and children involved varied across a spectrum - from resistance to desirability. This paper also looks at where these children were selected, their age, appearance, and health as registered in the documents, as well as what happened to them after their arrival in the capital, Istanbul. We also learn that locally powerful figures in Bursa such as landlords, voyvodas, kadıs, subasıs, formed groups to lobby the levy officers in order to influence their decisions.

Corruption and the Ethical Standards of British Public Life

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Moore
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Public Life ◽  
British Society ◽  
Ethical Standards ◽  
Municipal Level

This chapter goes deeper into a period that is often seen as one in which early modern “old corruption” was finally eliminated in Britain: namely, the period from 1880–1914. It argues that anticorruption measures and developments have often been held to account for this change. This chapter then changes perspective and, based on the author’s own analysis of local politics, makes clear that at the local and municipal level corruption remained a problem in Britain, thereby strengthening the argument that the effectiveness of certain ambitious anticorruption laws and the “end of corruption” in modern British society depends very much on one’s perspective.

scholarly journals Local-Level Democratic Backsliding? The Consolidation of Aspiring Dominant-Party Regimes in Hungary and Poland

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Conor O'Dwyer ◽  
Matthew Stenberg
Keyword(s):  
Local Politics ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Dominant Party ◽  
Mayoral Elections ◽  
Political Reforms ◽  
Strategic Coordination ◽  
The Future ◽  
Two Factors

Abstract Aspiring dominant-party regimes often institute major institutional and political reforms at the national level to ensure they retain control. However, subnational politics is an important, under-studied, component of regime consolidation. This study uses mayoral races in Hungary and Poland from 2006 to 2018 to examine two factors that may inhibit dominant-party regime consolidation in local politics: the use of two-round, i.e. runoff, electoral systems and strategic coordination among opposition parties. While we find little evidence that strategic coordination can lead to widespread opposition success in single-round systems, we do find that increasing the number of candidates decreases the likelihood of the nationally dominant party winning in the first round while not affecting the second round. As such, two-round mayoral elections may be an important buffer to dominant-party regime consolidation and may provide a training ground for the future opposition.

From Local Activism to Local Politics: The Case of Moscow

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 577-604 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yana Gorokhovskaia
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Candidates ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Private Realm ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Local Problems ◽  
Training And Support

Conventional wisdom holds that civil society is a sphere of activity separate from the state and the private realm. Due to a combination of historical, developmental and institutional factors, Russian civil society today is dominated by the state. While not all interactions with the state are seen as harmful, scholars acknowledge that most politically oriented or oppositional non-governmental organizations today face difficult conditions in Russia. In response to the restrictions on civil society and the unresponsive nature of Russia’s hybrid authoritarian regime, some civil society actors in Moscow have made the transition into organized politics at the local level. This transition was motivated by their desire to solve local problems and was facilitated by independent electoral initiatives which provided timely training and support for opposition political candidates running in municipal elections. Once elected, these activists turned municipal deputies are able to perform some of the functions traditionally ascribed to civil society, including enforcing greater accountability and transparency from the state and defending the interest of citizens.

scholarly journals Assessing the Impact of Deliberative Democratic Initiatives at the Local Level: A Framework for Analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
pp. 749-769 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ank Michels ◽  
Harmen Binnema
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
Indirect Impact ◽  
The Impact

Although deliberative reforms have been proposed to strengthen democracy, little is known about their impact on politics, public policies, and society. This article develops a framework to systematically assess this impact, differentiating between direct and indirect forms of impact. We apply this framework to two cases of deliberative citizens’ summits in the Netherlands. Our analysis reveals that these summits have a limited direct impact on local politics and policy making, but a relatively strong indirect impact on the local community. The article also discusses some conditions that mediate the impact of the forum.

scholarly journals Analysis of the Influence of Local Politics on Implementation SDGs 4 Policy for Quality Education

2021 ◽  
pp. 196-204
Author(s):  
Wilda Rasaili ◽  
Dafik Dafik ◽  
Rachmat Hidayat ◽  
Hadi Prayitno
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Quality Education ◽  
Local Democracy ◽  
Public Meetings ◽  
A Value ◽  
Political Interests

SDGs-4, the quality education is one of the factors in achieving the goals of the SDGs. The problem is that the SDGs look ambitious in integrating local level policies that are responsive to political interests. The research used a mixed method of exploration, searching for interview data and questionnaires. The results showed that the implementation of the SDGs was strongly influenced by local democracy. The implementation of the promotion of SDGs requires strengthening local politics and democracy, including; the quality of the Pilkada, the role of the community, political parties, media control, and public meetings. The influence of local democracy on policy implementation is 51.5%. Policy implementation has a positive effect on the implementation of the SDGs with a value of 0.187. The influence of local democracy and policy implementation on the promotion of SDGs-4 is 64.2% and the remaining 35.8% is influenced by other factors.

Officeholding and Local Politics in Early Modern Wales: A Study of the Salesburys of Rhug and Bachymbyd, c. 1536–1621

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sadie Jarrett
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Status

Officeholding was a defining ascpect of early modern Welsh gentility and was more prominent in upholding the status and authority of the Welsh gentry than it was for their English counterparts. Using a case study of the Salesburys of Rhug and Bachymbyd, this article analyses the importance of officeholding to the Welsh gentry after the Acts of Union (1536 and 1543). It finds that the Salesburys were effective local administrators who understood how to use officeholding to enhance their status in their community. At the same time, the family were not isolated in the localities and they continually engaged with the agents of central government.

“Constructing the Poor in Early Seventeenth-Century London”1

2000 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 450-463
Author(s):  
Claire S. Schen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Demographic Pressure ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Undeserving Poor

Historians of early modern Europe have become accustomed to the dichotomy of the deserving and undeserving poor, though they still debate the origins of the transformation of attitudes toward the poor and poverty. Historians have studied less carefully the ways in which these presumably static categories flexed, as individuals and officials worked out poor relief and charity on the local level. Military, religious, and social exigencies, precipitated by war, the Reformation, and demographic pressure, allowed churchwardens and vestrymen to redraw the contours of the deserving and undeserving poor within the broader frame of the infirm, aged, and sick. International conflicts of the early seventeenth century created circumstances and refugees not anticipated by the poor law innovators of the sixteenth century. London’s responses to these unexpected developments illustrate how inhabitants constructed the categories of die deserving and undeserving poor. This construction depended upon the discretion of churchwardens and their fellow officers, who listened to the accounts and read the official documents of the poor making claims on parish relief and charity.

Emissaries, allies, accomplices and enemies: married women's work in eighteenth-century urban Sweden

Urban History ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 394-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARIA ÅGREN
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Women's Work ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Paid Work ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Women’S Work

ABSTRACTBased on so-called Excise court records, this article argues that in eighteenth-century urban Sweden much of middling women's work took place in the interstices between households, as ‘help’ given to other women, often across social divides. These forms of work are often difficult to track in the historical records and, consequently, they have remained unnoticed, creating the erroneous picture that women did not contribute to their households through paid work. The lack of attention to these kinds of work has also overemphasized the closed character of early modern households which were, in fact, both flexible and permeable units.

Investigating responses to theft in early modern Wales: communities, thieves and the courts

2004 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHARON HOWARD
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Local Networks ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Criminological Research ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Everyday World ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Communal Responsibility

This article makes use of the rich deposits of pre-trial documents in the court archives of early modern Wales, focusing on the county of Denbighshire, to investigate attitudes and responses to theft. Qualitative research on this subject tends to emphasize or privilege actively law-enforcing behaviour that led to trials; while that is the inevitable emphasis of court records, I argue that we need to examine witness testimonies more closely in order to understand responses that did not match up to the ideals of vigilance and communal responsibility. Drawing on modern criminological research, I explore ‘suspicion’ and the decision-making processes leading to various outcomes: non-action; investigation and prosecution; alternative resolutions that bypassed the courts. Finally, I explore the everyday ‘world of stolen goods’ and its social and economic rewards in local networks of reciprocal favours, gifts and alliances.

Slaves, Philanthropy and Pious Endowments in Early Modern Istanbul

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 125-152
Author(s):  
Veruschka Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Court Records ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This contribution aims to look through a common lens at two important components of early modern Ottoman society, namely the endowment system and the institution of slavery. The relationship and intersections of these two fields will be examined on the basis of Istanbul’s court records from the second half of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, in order to pursue the question of where and how (manumitted) slaves could benefit from endowments. The examination of individual cases found in the court records provides information about possible ways in which (former) slaves took on different roles and benefited from the charitable intentions of the founders of endowments.

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