Science and Technology in the Ottoman Language of Power (1790s-1910s)

Rethinking the State, the Economy, and the Elites

Bibliographic Data

ID2631455
AuthorsDarina Martykánová (0000-0002-5852-3096, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume31
Issue31
Publication date2020-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean journal of Turkish studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1773-0546 • E-ISSN: 1773-0546
PublisherOpenEdition (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.4000/ejts.6937
OpenAlexW3161769214
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited18

The nineteenth century was a period of ever-expanding government intervention that not only became more intensive, but also encompassed new fields of action. These were to be attended to by expert personnel, expected to be in possession of relevant knowledge and skills, achieved via training (tahsil-i fünûn) from other skilled men or in an institution of education. This drive towards a broader, more intense and specialised government intervention is well reflected in the shifting use of the concept of nafia in the bureaucratic parlance from a broad notion of beneficial and profitable actions to a very specific meaning of “public works” such as infrastructures and urban reforms. My analysis of the conceptual links between fenn-ilm, on the one hand, and nafia, on the other, strives to underline the importance of science for restructuring the state and the economy. While this conceptual interaction first emerged in the realm of government politics, it helped shape the symbolic sphere of economy and indicates the birth of the notion of a ‘national economy’ that no longer was defined by the state and fiscal concerns

Bureaucracy · Economic system · Economics · Epistemology · Institution · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Realm · Restructuring · Social science · Sociology · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Ottoman and Turkish Studies · Ottoman Empire History and Society · Public Administration