ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to explore the Ottoman state’s methods of rule by applying Michael Mann’s theoretical model of social power to its changing relationship with civil society. It will look at the mechanics of Ottoman political and ideological organisation and the ways these sustained the position of the state. Mann’s identification of the ‘channels’ of ideological communication and his construction of the methods of ‘compulsory cooperation’ will both be examined as a useful means of understanding the dynamics of imperial territorial conquest and social absorption. While Mann developed these in relation to the political administration of Mesopotamian and Classical rulers, here they will be applied to the Ottoman system of governance in terms of the establishment and maintenance of centralised political power and the institutionalisation of ideological legitimacy.1 Elements of continuity and change will be considered in order to illuminate social relations within the empire and to analyse Mann’s account of imperial rule. The organisation of political centrality will be considered, particularly in relation to infrastructural networks of ideological power, as the state’s supervisory pre-eminence crystallised before eventually beginning to falter as challenges to its ideological-political unity emerged.
