ABSTRACT
This chapter displays the plurality of middle-level intermediaries in the local structure and their ability to form coalitions. This allowed the state and local actors to work together in Edirne for the sake of many of the Tanzimat era’s developmental reforms. The chapter includes narrative accounts of local elites across Edirne province, such as Muslim owners of rice paddies in Plovdiv, non-Muslim capitalist entrepreneurs in Sliven or tax collectors allying and subleasing their tax farming rights as examples of coalitions that crossed religious and ethnic boundaries. It analyzes changes in provincial administration and shows changes in appointment patterns of civil servants in bureaucracy from local to nonlocal origin. It studies reform projects in public works, taxation and local councils to show how local coalitions facilitated socioeconomic development and integrationist state policies.
