From the Ottoman Experiment in Local Government to the First Constitutional Parliament of 1876-1877

Özet

It vvould be an exaggeration to speak of a rich tradition of local government, reaching deep down into the past, in Turkish history. The ability of urban or rural communities to undertake autonomous action and to set up their own organs of government was a relatively recent phenomenon in the Ottoman Empire, as indeed in many other countries (with the very limited exception of certain parts of medieval Europe). Nevertheless, some authors have made much of, for example, the say that craft guilds had in urban administration, or the fact the city of Ankara was run by the Akhis until the 15th century — to the point of arguing that religious orders like the Akhis represented a certain tradition of local government. It is diffıcult to regard such claims as resting on careful study of the available documentation, which reveal no evidence of any institutionalization nor hence of any continuity in local government. It is not on craft guilds or religious orders but on economic and financial autonomy that local government should be based, and it should be capable of sustaining itself by incorporating local residents as citizens into that institutional framework. But such processes were very late in setting in under Ottoman administration