UC San Diego

This thesis offers a nuanced analysis of state-business relations in the Ottoman Empire and its successor states in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries within a comparative and transnational framework. It challenges the conventional wisdom that emphasizes the dominant role of political elites in economic affairs while downplaying the agency and power wielded by businesspeople. A multidisciplinary approach that integrates historical, economic, institutional, and diplomatic analyses illustrates that the state’s influence on the business world had limits, and business associations and their leaders employed various strategies to safeguard and expand their interests and shape the economic landscape of the region.The first part examines Ottoman participation in the world’s fairs abroad and the Ottoman Empire’s penchant for finding a place for itself in the world system in a period when many intellectuals and politicians in the West saw the Ottoman state as the Sick Man of Europe. As one of the few politically independent Islamic powers, the Ottoman Empire wanted to represent its economy, art, customs, people, and religion at expositions that attracted millions of visitors. Ottoman ruling elites, commercial classes, intellectuals, and artists attempted to present an image of a united, strong, and civilized empire. While the Ottoman state and its political elites could not create the impression that they had hoped to achieve, a growing number of private enterprises and chambers took advantage of these fairs. Business associations maintained their intermediary role between the Ottoman economy and the outside world despite the absence of international fairs within the empire itself. The second part of the thesis explores the divergent paths of business associations and international fairs in the inter-war Middle East. To demonstrate that the circumstances of the different post-Ottoman countries varied greatly, it investigates the trade fairs of the inter-war period at two levels: regional and international. Trade fairs on the regional and international levels contributed to the emergence of new capitalist classes and the formation of national economies in the Middle East despite the devastation of World War I, political turmoil throughout the region, and the Great Depression. Chambers and fairs put businessmen from post-Ottoman countries in direct contact with one another. International fairs outside the Middle East further gave businessmen a voice and representation regarding business matters. Along with state authorities, business classes, individually and collectively, contributed to the representation of their home countries. Businessmen in the colonial Middle East exercised less control of associations and fairs than did their counterparts in politically independent countries because of colonial governments. As with their counterparts in Greece and Turkey, they used business associations and gatherings to preserve and multiply their personal wealth and social influence. Nonetheless, their weak connection to international chambers of commerce and the absence of a regularly held international fair in Beirut, Damascus, and Jerusalem restrained their collective power. A comparison of the interwar Middle East with the late Ottoman Empire in terms of business associations and gatherings revealed many profound changes. The two decades following the collapse of the empire were full of fairs, several of which attracted a considerable number of exhibitors and visitors from abroad. Unlike the closing decades of the empire, post-Ottoman countries staged fairs in which foreign countries, including the Great Powers of Europe and far-away nations of Scandinavia, officially attended. Interwar fairs were more successful than their prewar counterparts in terms of number of visitors, size, longevity, international recognition, diplomatic use, design, and architecture.