Knowledge Transaction and State Making from Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic

Abstract

This article proposes a reflection and avenues for research on Ottoman state policies aimed at collecting, producing, and translating knowledge across borders and learning from other macro-actors. Based on an archival study, we present and discuss a typology of knowledge “transaction” policies considering also the transition to the Turkish Republic. Our analysis covers the transformation of Ottoman diplomacy and diplomatic missions, the employment of foreign experts and international expertise, public officials’ training and studies abroad, scholarship programs, and various forms of international cooperation, including participation in international organisations and conferences. We discuss state formation in Ottoman and Republican Turkey as a hybridisation process of government technologies, techniques and knowledge translated from other states. The study focuses on public action aimed at the incorporation of governmental knowledge within the framework of continuous state-building and power struggles which were increasingly marked by the (contested) hegemony of a certain "West” and its ambiguities.