Ottoman Tobacco and the Moral Economy of State-Led Development (c. 1908–12)

Abstract In the Second Constitutional Era (1908–18), proponents of various models for national development debated the Ottoman future under the Committee for Union and Progress ( cup ). Public discussions of cup policies related to the tobacco sector were central to these discussions in the southern Balkans. As such, they provide a window into the political and moral economy of the region and some of the public critiques of international finance after the 1908 Constitutional Revolution. By 1908, tobacco had been at the crossroads of regional economic development and European financial domination for nearly three decades. Since the domestic tobacco monopoly was set to expire in 1913, the region was primed for debates about the agricultural credit market and the customs regime. This article argues that cup proposals for state-led development aimed to satisfy the divergent moral demands of agriculturalists ( zürrāʿ ) and merchants ( tüccar ) in the tobacco-producing zones of the empire.