Proposals Offered By Ahmet Rıza Bey and Saıd Halim Pasha in the Context of Modernization of the Imperial State Structure

After the Reformation movement in Europe in the 16th century, the state structure was reconsidered and with the Treaty of Westphalia signed in 1648, a new order was brought to international politics. With the French Revolution (1789), a new understanding of state structure that included the concepts of nation and citizenship began to rise throughout Europe. This modernization process, which deeply affected international politics and introduced many new terms to the agenda of states, also had its reflections on the Ottoman Empire, and Western-centered modernization activities were initiated in the state, which had a traditional administrative structure, starting from the reign of Sultan Selim III (1789-1807). The Westernization movement, which became a state policy with the Tanzimat Edict (1839), brought about important reforms in the political structure of the Empire and the statesmen who were effective in the administration developed modernization proposals for the political structure of Ottoman Empire under the influence of this international political modernization process. In this article, the views of Ahmet Rıza Bey and Said Halim Pasha, two politicians and intellectuals who important duties in the senior levels of the state in the last years of the Empire and who were under the influence of ideologies such as Positivism and Islamism, will be discussed in terms of the basic concepts concerning the modern state, and the political structuring visions they put forward will be examined comparatively.