ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the rise and the spread of Ottomanism in the mind-set of the early nineteenth-century Ottoman ruling elites came into being among mutually constitutive historical contingencies and temporal sequences. The context of these external necessities and internal opportunities to reform occurred in three interconnected relationships: (1) the changing international context toward popular sovereignty rather than dynastic sovereignties, (2) the rise of peripheral anti-state rebellions that benefited from the opportunity spaces of the changing international context, and (3) the internal power competition within the Ottoman state and the power consolidation of civilian elites who believed in reform.
