ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the ideological contours of the Hamidian Empire on the one hand and the socioeconomic continuities between Tanzimat and Hamidian Yenişehir (including the nahiye of İznik hereafter) on the other. It examines how the Hamidian regime took root in Western Anatolia by focusing on the ideological and administrative claims of the central state and their reception in local contexts. This chapter also discusses the continued intertwined character of the local political arena and rural economy as the Hamidian regime consolidated itself in the region. By focusing on Kaymakam Ramazan Efendi’s “eventful” short-term office in Yenişehir, it unravels the fight for rural resources in the countryside at the quotidian level of local administration. Focusing on how Yenişehir’s political economy functioned over the medium term reveals persistent socioeconomic structures amid political, ideological and institutional transformations of the Hamidian era.
