The rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire’s religiously inspired status symbols

Abstract

How do status symbols rise and fall? Or better said, how does a status symbol become a status symbol and then cease to be one? We examine the rise and the fall of the Ottoman Empire’s two socialization practices with the international society as status symbols: sending and receiving envoys/establishing permanent representation abroad and granting capitulations/extraterritoriality—economic and legal privileges to primarily European countries. We argue and illustrate that status symbols are products of hegemons of the time that dictate the status symbols of the international order at that particular point in time, with little or no recognition. These symbols emanating from the position that the states occupy in the hierarchy can be status-enhancing rather than status-achieving if these states perceive and locate themselves in the higher echelons of the hierarchy in the international order. We contribute to status-seeking literature by examining the rise and fall of status symbols in a non-Western setting and merging ideational and material factors in status-seeking literature.

How do status symbols rise and fall? Or better said, how does a status symbol become a status symbol and then cease to be one? Taking the definition laid out in the introduction of this special issue (SI) that defines status symbols as “intermediary mechanisms”—things, attributes, rights, privileges, or behavior—that actors acquire, embody, or practice that signal or constitute their social status (see the introduction of this SI), we examine the rise and the fall of Ottoman Empire’s two socialization practices with the international society as status symbols: sending and receiving diplomatic envoys/establishing permanent representation abroad and granting capitulations/extraterritoriality—economic and legal privileges to mostly European countries. While the Ottoman Empire, until the late 18th century, did not have permanent diplomatic representation abroad, it allowed other states to have permanent representation in the Ottoman Empire and, in most cases, fully cover their expenses. Likewise, in the founding years of the Ottoman Empire, first economic and later legal privileges were granted to mostly European countries without reciprocity. These socialization practices can be considered behaviors peculiar to the Ottoman Empire. Regardless of their peculiarity, however, these two socialization practices, or behaviors, of the Ottoman Empire, so to speak, “signaled and/or constituted the social status” of the Empire, allowing the Empire’s rulers to see themselves higher in the hierarchy of the international order, further enhancing and solidifying the standing of the Empire in the international hierarchy. Put differently, a combination of religious self-ascribed superiority, military power, and territorial expansion enabled the Ottoman Empire to dictate the terms of the socialization it would have with the rest of the world, more so with Europe, on Empire’s terms. However, with the Empire’s decline and the simultaneous rise of the West, the very status symbols of the Ottoman Empire were transformed into stigmas that the Ottoman Empire vehemently tried to eliminate. This was because these status symbols that once signaled Ottoman superiority and strength became Ottoman weakness and inferiority in the 17th century onwards, as both practices became clear violations of the principle of sovereignty and sovereign equality.

In this article, we make two arguments based on these two socialization practices of the Ottoman Empire. First, we argue and illustrate that status symbols are produced by the hegemons that can fully or partially dictate the status symbols of the international order at that particular point in time, with little or no recognition. These symbols emanating from the position that the states occupy in the hierarchy can be status-enhancing rather than status-achieving if these states are already located in the higher parts of the hierarchy ladder. Status symbols are status-enhancing when these status symbols end up becoming another layer of status, that is, enhance the status of a state that is already in the high up, in a real or perceived manner, in the international hierarchy, or already has a status. That is, status-enhancing status symbols usually emanate from an already achieved status. However, status symbols can be status-achieving when the state in question can have a higher status only when that status symbol is achieved. When status symbols are status-enhancing, there is little need for collective recognition of this particular status symbol by the international society. Because of its already existing high status in the international hieararchy, the state in question, i.e., the hegemon, can dictate its behavior or status symbol without asking or requiring any collective recognition from outside. In this piece, we extrapolate on the status-enhancing type of status symbols, and we do so by examining the two socialization practices—sending and receiving envoys/establishing permanent representation abroad and granting capitulations/extraterritoriality—economic legal and legal privileges that dominated Ottoman diplomacy for long years. Second, we argue and illustrate that status symbols can be ephemeral, multivocal, and temporal. They can emerge, transform, and subsequently be abandoned over time. In the case of the Ottoman Empire’s two socialization practices under scrutiny—sending and receiving envoys and establishing permanent representation abroad—the Empire’s decline, however, brought the Empire’s ability to dictate the status symbols of the international order to an end, forcing the former hegemon to follow the status symbols of the new hegemon or hegemons of the international order. In this case, the rise of the West and Western sovereignty practices transformed these socialization practices of the Ottoman Empire, which were once status symbols, into items of inferiority, thus creating a loss of status for the Empire.

Overall, our contribution is threefold. First, we scrutinize not only the emergence of status symbols but also how these symbols of status become defunct over the centuries and then are forced to be replaced by other status symbols (e.g. search for colonies, acquisition of ironclad ships) as a result of the birth of “standards of civilization” as well as “standards of modernity” (Gong, 1984) by differentiating between status symbols as status-enhancing versus status-achieving. Second, we merge ideational and material factors in status-seeking literature to illustrate that some status symbols perpetuate status rather than achieve a certain status and that a status symbol in order to become a status symbol does not need to have a material value. Third, we heed calls that have underscored to “bring the Ottoman Order Back into International Relations” (Balcı, 2021) to challenge the “supposed lifespan of the material and social hierarchies” dictated by Eurocentric International Relations (IR) literature (Zarakol, 2021). Finally, in order to do all these, we adopt a historical, sociological approach, which “is useful because it enables us to reveal how hierarchies have changed through history and it furnishes us with a means to locate the social dynamics that underpin such political formations” (Hobson and Sharman, 2005: 64).

We divide our study into two parts. We first elaborate on status-seeking and status symbols in IR literature, exploring how different IR approaches framed the nature of status games, the character, and the role played by status symbols in these games and the dominant themes and debates that have emerged in this literature. Then, in the second part, we elaborate on the sources of Ottoman status claims by underscoring how a mixture of religiously informed superiority claims that also fueled the military victories and territorial expansion of the Empire enabled the Ottoman Empire to pave the way for a self-ascribed status, that is status-enhancing status, in the international order at that point in time. In the third section, we show how military defeats and territorial losses turned these socialization practices that were once status symbols into stigmas hinting at Ottoman inferiority vis-à-vis the West, forcing the Ottoman rulers to socialize into the European standards of civilization and adopt new technologies to declare and maintain the Empire’s sovereignty by embracing modern European diplomacy built upon reciprocity, multilateralism, and international recognition.

Finally, let us finish this introduction with a caveat lector: since in order to make our conceptual contribution, we tell the story of the transformation of the status symbols in the Ottoman Empire, we inevitably talk about the adoption of the “standards of civilization” in diplomacy in the last centuries of the Empire. While mentioning the adoption of Western “standards of civilization” in the very last centuries of the Empire that came to an end officially in 1922, the last thing that we would like to do is to repeat Eurocentric narratives of the integration of the Ottoman Empire into Western international society of the earlier scholarship that placed the Ottoman Empire (and other Empires of the East) as mere adopters of this “standards of civilization” without an agency. As is evident in the following pages, the Empire’s rulers made deliberate choices to pick certain modes of socialization instead of others interacting with West and East simultaneously. Our focus is not on the adoption of these standards of modernity in diplomatic socialization practices. Instead, the emphasis is placed on the earlier socialization practices of the Ottoman Empire as an extension of their status. The same concerns apply to the “decline” thesis as well. The scholarship has started to question the Eurocentric accounts of the Ottoman decline (e.g. Peirce, 2004: 21–23; Quataert, 2003), highlighting the fact that as much as there was decline, there was “imperial renewal” (Kafadar, 1997: 70–71) as well as “skillful maneuvering of its diplomats abroad in the ever-volatile international order of the time” (Alloul and Martykánová, 2021: 1019) that prolonged the lifetime of the Empire. However, such rejections or the reelaborations of the deterministic decline thesis do not really change the trajectory of the Ottoman Empire that it lost territories, suffered military defeats, and finally became defunct in 1922. Our piece should be evaluated within this context, focusing on the creation and transformation of status-enhancing status symbols rather than the adoption of status-achieving status symbols.

Status and status symbols: the main themes and debates

IR literature on status has rapidly developed in the last decade with the motivation to understand the mechanisms, rationale, and triggers of the status claims of non-Western rising powers (Larson et al., 2014). Scholars representing ontologically different avenues of IR endeavor to explain and understand the nature of status, the leading dynamics of states’ quest for status, and the role status symbols play. Renshon (2017: 33) adopted a rationalist approach to realist IR and argued that status refers to the “standing and rank in a status community.” This definition leads to the point that in the eyes of the elites of the political actors of the international system, status-seeking is derived from an inter-subjective positioning of states to mark their place in world hierarchies (Renshon, 2017: 34–35). It is a “positional good” (Götz, 2021: 230) that gives clues about the status-seeking actor’s perception of self and others. According to Renshon (2017), states engage in status competition to increase their relative position to maximize future material gains. This special social club identity is a means or a political instrument to actualize national interests (Renshon, 2017: 33). In light of these, Renshon’s (2017) rationalist account highlights the role prestige games and the material and non-material prestige symbols play in achieving states’ national interests through strategic interactions (pp. 47–55). Accordingly, status symbols—like military and economic power—are the strategic assets used by states that want to be a part of a prestige club that enables status-seeking states to fulfill their national interests and achieve their pre-set goals by allocating lesser national resources. For Gilady (2018), on the other hand, these military assets, as much as they might be strategic ones, can also be conspicuous consumption geared toward “performing” the status of the state. “Thus, once large navies become a status symbol, actors may wish to procure a large navy in order to be perceived as a great power independent of its primary utility as an instrument of power projection” (Gilady, 2018: 38). Accordingly, “any intersubjective conceptualization of hierarchical ranking has to rely on a shared understanding of which indexes matter and how much,” meaning that these symbols are dependent on recognition by the members of the community that form the club (Gilady, 2018: 36).

On the other hand, Wohlforth et al. (2018) criticize the materialist account by arguing that status is a social and collective good contextually dictated by a moral and higher order. This collective good is perceptional and draws the boundaries in world hierarchies and status seekers’ place in those hierarchies. Status is not about A’s perceptions of B’s; it refers to a higher order or a moral authority configuring collective beliefs about social facts (Wohlforth et al., 2018: 527). “When a state is dissatisfied with its status, those collective beliefs are the source of the problem. When a state seeks status, those collective beliefs are the object of its efforts” (Wohlforth et al., 2018: 527). Collective beliefs are driven by the facts about the social system, and the civilization stands guiding in-group affairs are the social good that marks the status of international actors. Thus, the social value assigned to a higher moral authority’s standards, beliefs, and symbols differentiate status games from mere international affairs. Based on this social identity account, collective standards, status symbols, and the belief systems drawing the boundaries of hierarchies are subject to change since “structure is ever emergent, and it is thus continuously constituted and reconstituted through both attempts at gaining status and the giving or withholding of recognition” (Wohlforth et al., 2018: 528). Inspired by Ringmar’s (1996) “cycle of recognition,” Wohlforth et al. (2018) highlight that social recognition and status-seeking attempts offer a dynamic and negotiated framework that influences both structural hierarchies and institutionalization of norms and values assigned to those positions.

Linking status with stigma

While “recognition by the international normative authority” is the key in international socialization, it is not the only mechanism. Many times, the process of recognition goes hand in hand with the process of “stigmatization” or “the use of shaming to promote international norms” (Adler-Nissen, 2014: 143). Inspired by the sociological accounts of Goffman (1963), who elaborated on the deviance and abnormality in social theory, bourgeoning literature on the stigmatization and the behavioral change of stigmatized actors in the international system has evolved in IR literature. In line with this, while possessing “status symbols” highlights the actors’ compliance with the normative structure, “stigmas” are the markers of outsider status (Zarakol, 2010). Adler-Nissen (2014) highlights that stigmatization differs from “othering,” constitutive elements of modern identity politics. In addition to its discursive character and socially identifier role, stigmatization is “material and embodied” (Adler-Nissen, 2014: 146). It refers to a performance of the norm setter that involves labeling (naming and shaming), stereotyping (attributing deviance), separation, discrimination (imposing sanctions, cutting diplomatic relations, etc.) and status loss (Adler-Nissen, 2014; Link and Phelan, 2001). The performative aspect of stigma attribution also brings power asymmetries in the normative order to the fore; it highlights the norm setter’s will to power and enforces transgressive actors for adaptation (Link and Phelan, 2001).

In the meanwhile, the norm-setter’s discursive and performative endeavors may not act upon the transgressive actor when the parties are not the member of the same society (Zarakol, 2010: 60–61) or have no agreement on the common standards of the normative order (Adler-Nissen, 2014). In other words, members of parallel universes, whose interactions are limited to a few daily exchanges and the mode of these daily exchanges are transactional and whose fulfillment did not necessitate being a part of a collective normative system, would not be “shamed by comparison” (Zarakol, 2010: 60). Zarakol (2010) also discusses this sine qua non condition of successful stigmatization, argues that modernity and the rise of Western world order, articulated by the globalization of universalizing and homogenizing claims of modern value system, generated an international social milieu where actors involved had to transform their self-identity and socialize with the norms and values of the Westphalian system of sovereign states. In line with these, the modern international order is only a moment in the history of humankind, and it has articulated an ever-closer international society in which members of it (both insiders and outsiders) have been assessed based on their level of appropriation of and deviation from the Western standards of civilization. Thus, negative assessments of states in the Western world order “. . . have never been value-neutral objective descriptions of reality but are best thought of as ‘stigma’ labels in the sociological sense” (Zarakol, 2010: 57). Importantly, what made modern stigmatization process successful is the actors’ (both stigma-imposer and the stigmatized) mutual recognition of Western values as the universal standards of civilization. This leads us to the point that both status symbols and stigmas are the mechanisms imposed by international hegemonical order-makers who aim at outlawing anti-norm agents, and their symbolic power is heavily dependent on the individual actors’ recognition of the universality of established normative order and their embracing of attributed deviance from the standards of civilization. As Adler-Nissen (2014) points out, when stigmatization is fully internalized by the stigmatized other, actors are involved in a transformation to mitigate international politics of stigmatization. In light of these, mitigating stigma through transformation (Adler-Nissen, 2014: 156–158) might be another motivation for the stigmatized actors to seek higher status in world politics by appropriating behaviors, norms, and symbols of a higher international social club.

Identity and status

At this point, states’ self-image and narratives about their own peculiarities are constitutive in their struggle to be a part of positional and social clubs. Murray argues that “state identity formation depends unavoidably on recognition, and so a state’s social status is always the socially constructed political effect of its interactions with other states that either confirm or contradict its self-understanding” (Murray, 2019: 46). Triggered by an inner sense of (in)security (ontological (in)security), a state’s quest for status is a component of the construction of national state identity (Zarakol, 2010), and it is an ongoing attempt to secure that state’s self-recognition is recognized by the international society (Murray, 2019: 46–47). Based on constant fear of misrecognition or a status gap, a mismatch between self-recognition and recognition by “significant others” (Gustafsson, 2016; Murray, 2019: 47) triggered by social uncertainties, states introduce some strategies to secure their social position: constantly re-articulate their state identity; resist significant others’ “control over the meaning of their identities” (Murray, 2019: 48); and demand sovereignty over the meaning of self-identity.

Although Murray does not directly point out the symbols of status, she underlines that the “collectively known schemas” (Murray, 2019: 50) and socially recognized material practices of the status clubs are the symbols and the instruments that states socialize with to secure and enhance their social position and guarantee survival in the international system. In line with these, Murray’s resonance with ontological security literature highlights the importance of the gap between self-recognition and recognition by others and the negotiated nature of status symbols. While individual states constantly reconfigure and negotiate their state identity in response to the impulses coming from the peer or non-peer groups, new meanings and the practices attached to these meanings are also produced. Thus, the status markers are influenced by the inconsistent nature of international society and the endless endeavors of others to secure their inter-subjective position and the intensity of interactions (Murray, 2019: 50–55). This also underlines how status symbols are socially constructed and turned into repetitive and recognized social practices, and they change over time in line with the interactive negotiations of individual states of the international society. At this point, structural constraints are the frameworks in which certain material practices are socially recognized as symbols of status. For example, the modern era introduced specific status symbols, that is, material practices such as having professional armies, national anthems, flags, and constitutions that mark the sovereign and modern character of the states (Murray, 2019: 52). These material practices serve as status symbols that “are seemingly indisputable proof that the identity of the state is real, tangible and unchanging” (Murray, 2019: 52). This statement highlights the functionality of status symbols and their interactions with state identity within socially constructed collective schemas and standards.

Another significant contribution is made by Larson and Shevchenko (2019), who adopted a social-psychological account to understand the place of status in international politics. “Just as a group’s status depends on traits valued by society, so a state’s international status depends on its ranking on prized attributes, such as military power, economic development, cultural achievements, diplomatic skill, and technological innovation” (Larson and Shevchenko, 2019: 3). To them, the ultimate motivation for higher status is the universal trait of all humankind—self-esteem. Like private individuals, states engage in prestige games to have self-esteem. In this sense, status is a good, not a means or an instrument of achieving a higher position in international politics (Larson and Shevchenko, 2019: 5–7). Ward (2017) also adopts a similar approach rooted in Social Identity Theory (SIT). He discusses the rising power’s quest for status and argues that actors’ choices to socialize into dominant status structures or contest with the hierarchies depend on the status seekers’ perceptions of status symbols as the significant markers of a higher status (Ward, 2017: 822).

Meanwhile, status games also depend on the actors’ relative power and position in the world hierarchies. If the actors have adequate resources and capacity, they can challenge the existing hierarchies and the symbolic meanings attached to them (Ward, 2017: 822–823). States may engage in competitive behavior when “improving the group’s rank along consensually valued dimensions of comparison and achieving recognition of having done so from relevant out-groups solves the dilemma of identification with a subordinate ingroup by increasing ingroup status” (Ward, 2017: 823). This strategy is the manifest expression that the status-seeking actor acknowledges values attributed to the symbols of status social club. In contrast, actors may adopt a revisionist attitude by challenging or re-interpreting the constitutive characteristics of status clubs under a creative strategy. Contrary to Ward, Beaumont (2020), on the other hand, argues that states, to appeal, domestic groups can create and “maintain hierarchies of their own” without requiring any recognition from the international community.

In the light of the existing literature, three main debates emerge in the status-seeking literature: first, the actors’ decision to internalize the status symbols of higher order or to resist those symbols; second, whether status symbols are dependent on the role of actors’ material strength and relative position in international hierarchies in the process of socialization into world affairs; and finally, the third debate centers around whether status symbols require collective recognition of the international society. In the pages below, we show that, as has been the case with the Ottoman Empire’s two socialization practices—sending and receiving diplomatic envoys/establishing permanent representation abroad and granting capitulations/extraterritorial privileges—before the 18th century, it is possible for the hegemons of the international order or those with high standing in the international order to create and pursue their own status symbols with no need for recognition. These two socialization practices, or thus the behavior of the Ottoman Empire, are based on or stem from the higher real/perceived status of the Ottoman Empire, we call them status-enhancing status symbols and thus distinguish them from status-achieving ones. Finally, these status symbols based on socialization practices can be ideational status symbols, and as is evident in the Ottoman case, status symbols may become defunct with time. We detail our conceptualization below.

The sources of the Ottoman superiority in the pre-modern world order

Following the demise of the Roman Empire in the West, until the late 17th century (i.e. before the rise of the Western world), the West was placed at the periphery of Eastern millennial world orders of Chinggisid, Timurid, Ottoman, Safavid, Memluk, and Mughal Empires (Zarakol, 2022: 219). Eastern emperors’ strategy to legitimate their sovereignty and superiority over the lands under their control was personalistic, self-ascribed, teleological, and backed by Eastern/Islamic mysticism and occultism (Melvin-Koushki, 2018; Zarakol, 2022). The Chinggisid world order of the 13th and 14th centuries was based on the cult of Great Khan, a world conqueror—a messiah (Fleischer, 2018)—whose superiority was omnipotent and the act of providence (Fleischer, 2018). The source of Khan’s great power had been institutionalized by the combination of both physical (inter-territorial trade and conquests) and meta-physical (astrology and ancient myths) elements. The Chinggisid world order was replaced by the Timurid millennial order in West Asia, yet it appropriated the same universal claim of sovereignty and superiority by reconciling imperial norms and the Islamic prophecy (Zarakol, 2022: 218). This marked the start of the legacy of sahibkıran (Lord of Conjunction), which “marked world conquerors; they were supposed to have been born under a Saturn–Jupiter conjunction, which also marked the end of ages. The title gave special status, authority and power to rulers so marked” (Zarakol, 2022: 219). Fleischer (2018, 2019) argues that through the interactions with intellectuals of the Timurid order, in which Timur was declared as the messianic conqueror of the East and West and the millennial great Khan that ended history, the Ottoman dynasty—a Western Asian great power of post-Timur era—internalized sahibkıran tradition. In line with these, Ottoman sultans, together with other leaders of the Islamic empires (e.g. Safavid Shah Ismail) that declared themselves as the world conquerors heralded by the Islamic prophecy, legitimated the source of their self-ascribed superiority by merging the Changgisid great power legacy with Islamic ontology. This adoption of the sahibkıran tradition from Eastern world orders by the Ottoman dynasty structured the self-image of Ottoman sultans who conducted multiple campaigns to expand Ottoman order toward the Muslim and non-Muslim world.

One such episode of self-ascribed religiously based superiority, thus the status claim of one of the Ottoman Sultan’s Süleyman the Magnificent (1494–1566), can be found in the walls of the Bender Castle in today’s Moldova:

I am God’s slave and sultan of this world. By the grace of God, I am the head of Muhammad’s community. God’s might and Muhammad’s miracles are my companions. I am Süleymân, for whose name the sermons are read in Mecca and Medina. In Baghdad, I am the shah, in Byzantine realms, the Caesar, and in Egypt, the sultan, who sends his fleets to the seas of Europe, the Maghrib, and India. I am the sultan who took the crown and throne of Hungary and granted them to a humble slave. The voivoda Petru raised his head in revolt, but my horse’s hoofs grounded him into the dust, and I conquered the land of Moldavia. (Süleyman the Magnificent, 1538, an inscription from Bender Castle (in today’s Moldova) quoted in İnalcık, 1994 [1973]: 109)

As noted in the above inscription, at the core of Ottoman rulers’ real sense of superiority was their conqueror complex, which was the fulfillment of prophecy and the realization of a God-given, or better said heavenly-given promise. This, along with the ghaza understanding, would fuel the Empire’s uninterrupted territorial expansion from its inception around the 14th century until the end of the 17th century in a vast geography from Egypt to Moldovia.

The Ottoman state started as a “tiny outpost” in medieval Asia Minor, to quote Kafadar (1996: xi). Within less than 200 years, it conquered Constantinople—a city with both strategic and symbolic importance—and became a “regional empire on the margins of the Islamic world with considerable prestige” (Faroqhi, 2013: 10). Later, the conquest of Egypt, Syria, and Iraq in the 16th century, which, in addition to territory, brought the title of caliph and the Holy cities Mecca and Medina (Emiralioğlu, 2012: 169), transformed the Empire from a “Gazi frontier state to a Muslim Empire in the tradition of the Islamic caliphate” (Naff, 1984: 145) helping the Empire to acquire an “overarching prestige and unshakable legitimacy” among the Muslims as well Christian Europe (Kafadar, 1997: 40). ¹

Religion or the self-ascribed superiority to Islam motivated territorial expansion, aside from power, prestige, and wealth. The territorial expansion was done in the name of ghaza—the Islamic idea that conquests were made to spread the Islamic faith against “infidel” Christian nations (Kafadar, 1996; Kastritsis, 2012: Ch. 2). Though the role of religion, that is, the ghaza understanding, in the initial conquests is one of the most disputed issues in Ottoman historiography, there is little doubt that religion was a crucial determinant in giving the Ottomans a sense of perceived superiority. At this point, ghaza and the ideal of the domination of Islam over Christendom were simultaneously utilized as a symbol of status and prestige in Ottoman Sultans’ dealings with the Muslim world (Yurdusev, 2004: 14). With its symbolic power in the Muslim world and marking its difference and superiority over the Christian world, ghaza played a significant role in the Ottoman Empire’s encounters with its global and regional rivals. Ottoman Empire’s simultaneous fight against the Habsburgs and the Safavids in the 16th century, together with the conquest of Constantinople, for example, led to the birth of a self-ascribed “universal sovereignty” claim and “imperial vision.” Islam, or what the Ottomans understood from it, would also become a principle of global ordering against the Ottoman Empire’s Safavid rivals, as the Safavid version of Islam would be discredited as being heretic (Dressler, 2005: 155). Thus, to justify its self-declared supremacy, at least at the symbolic level, against its rivals both in the East and West, the Ottoman Empire came up with the rhetoric of being in the “center of the universe” (Emiralioğlu, 2012). To sum up, a combination of self-perceived religious superiority, military victories, and territorial expansion set the ground for the Ottoman Empire’s status claims, enabling the Empire’s rulers to envision the Empire high on the international hierarchy ladder. This kind of an envisioning also determined how the Empire socialized in international society, thus making the Ottoman Empire’s international socialization practices a status symbol of its own right. More specifically, this ghaza understanding manifested itself in the Dar-ul Harb (Abode of War) versus Dar-ul Islam (Abode of Islam) distinction, which suggested that the Ottomans, following the word of the Prophet Mohammed, should be waging jihad against the “infidel Christians” until they brought the world under the rule of the word of Prophet Mohammed (Naff, 1984: 143–144). This claim, other than fueling territorial expansion and a sense of superiority, also provided the Ottomans with a guideline as to how to run the Empire internally but also externally—adopting the thumb rule of the non-acceptance of equality of and being in non-reciprocal relations with the Christian sovereigns (Naff, 1984: 144). This non-acceptance of equality and non-reciprocity, in turn, enabled the rulers of the Ottoman Empire to make the claim of superiority against its rivals (Hurewitz, 1961: 145), thus furthering the superior Ottoman self-perception (Brummett, 2013: 68) and enhancing the status of the Empire once again through Empire’s socialization practices.

The rise of Ottoman style socialization as status symbols

Sending/receiving envoys and establishing permanent representation abroad

The belief of superiority, the belief of ranking higher in the hierarchy, was the reason behind the Empire’s “non-reciprocal diplomacy” (Naff, 1963: 296). First, Christian Europe, as mentioned above, was part of Dar-ul-Harb or the abode of war, which meant that the Ottoman rulers had to be in constant war—ghaza—with the infidel rulers and did not consider Europe as their equal and thus not worthy enough to participate in the norms of European diplomacy in full or reciprocating in terms of permanent representations (Naff, 1977: 97; Yurdusev, 2004: 27). Second, until the late 17th century, the Ottoman Empire was at the height of its power and thus had the choice and the chance to interact with the outside world in the way that it wished, and simply diplomatic encounters in European style were not a priority for the Ottoman Empire (Naff, 1963: 295). Finally, before the age of sending permanent residents abroad started, the Ottoman way of doing diplomacy involved sending temporary envoys to report various news from the Empire, to negotiate or renegotiate treaties with the European Powers, or to collect taxes from these powers—as such temporary needs arose (Altunış-Gürsoy, 2006: 139; Topaktaş, 2015). To sum up, this belief in superiority did not mean that the Ottomans had no diplomatic encounters with the Christian West. Rather, because the Empire had military supremacy, it handled diplomacy not in the European way but in the Ottoman way—as the Ottoman rulers deemed fit, making the conduct of diplomacy, at least in terms of sending and receiving envoys and not establishing permanent representation abroad—another symbol of status for the Ottoman Empire.

Related to receiving permanent representation, until the late 18th century, the other display of Ottoman status, by way of diplomacy, was the tayinat system. Tayinat system meant that the Ottoman Empire saw foreign ambassadors as “guests” (Göcek, 1987: 20). This meant that in line with the Ottoman hospitality traditions, the Empire provided for the daily livelihood (food, lodging, and even sometimes furniture in their residences) of the foreign envoys appointed to the Ottoman Empire during their appointment in the Ottoman capital, as this was simply a matter of behaving per the “reputation of the Great State (Devlet-i Aliye)” and thus was another way of displaying the “greatness and the hospitality” of the Ottoman Empire (Topaktaş, 2015: 37–40). The tradition of providing livelihood to foreign envoys ended in the late 18th century when the first permanent ambassador of the Ottoman Empire was sent to London and was not reciprocated with the payment of his daily expenses there (Topaktaş, 2015: 43). Interestingly, this Western non-reciprocity would become one of the excuses of the Ottoman Empire to give up on the practice, which, when met with utter resistance from foreign countries, continued to exist sporadically until the mid-19th century for ambassadors coming from the East (Naff, 1963: 307; Topaktaş, 2015: 44).

Capitulations and extraterritoriality—economic and legal privileges given to foreigners

Another crucial status symbol of the Ottoman reign was the Ottoman Sultans granting economic and legal privileges to foreigners. Defined as “a treaty by the terms of which foreigners resident in Turkey are entitled to special immunities and rights and are more or less subject to the laws of their respective countries” (Sousa, 1933: 3), capitulations started to become one of the most preferred and essential instruments of interaction between the Ottoman Empire and European powers early as 14th century (İnalcık, 1994 [1973]: 395–404; Naff, 1984: 156) until the Ottoman Empire revoked them in October 1914, a month before the Empire’s official entry into World War I. Ottoman rulers granted these capitulations to gain allies, usually aiming to tilt the balance of power from one European power against the other, thus creating new balances or disturbing the existing ones in Europe, effectively enabling the Ottoman Empire to orchestrate (mostly) the European affairs (İnalcık, 1997: np; Yurdusev and Yurdusev, 1999: 143). As a result, these capitulations became institutions “that laid the foundation” for the Ottoman Empire’s relations with the West until World War I (Naff, 1977: 98, 1984: 156). The first such privilege was a long-term monopoly in alum production in Manisa (Magnisia), granted to the Genoese in return for securing the Genoese support for shipping Ottoman troops across Dardanelles in 1421 and 1444 and garnering Genoese neutrality during the siege of Constantinople in 1453 (İnalcık, 1994 [1973]: 395). Following the Geneose, these economic privileges were later extended to the Venetians first by Beyazid I and later by Mehmet the Conqueror (İnalcık, 1994 [1973]: 396), and later to France in 1569, to England in 1580, and Netherlands in 1612 (İnalcık, 1997: np). While these initial capitulations in the form of trade and economic privileges would help the Ottoman Empire directly influence the European balance of power, the Empire also indirectly led to the enrichment of Renaissance Italy and the development of capitalism in Europe (İnalcık, 1997: np; Naff, 1984: 147).

More importantly, these privileges were quite reflective of the sentiment of the Ottoman Empire’s superiority or the Empire’s higher self-ascribed status in the hierarchy of the international order (Naff, 1977: 98, 1984: 148). That is, until the 18th century, when the Ottoman Empire started to weaken politically and economically, the Ottoman Sultans granting these trade privileges via ahdnames did so without asking for equal privileges from the European powers in return (Naff, 1977: 98). This non-reciprocity, to quote Hurewitz, “constituted a source of not weakness but of strength” of the Empire (Hurewitz, 1961: 146), was the self-ascribed superiority of the Ottomans as they did not regard the Westerners as their equal (Naff, 1977: 98, 1984: 147). Besides, from an Ottoman perspective, the ahdnames were decrees or edicts, rather than a treaty, given simply out of the Sultan’s grace, so by default, they could not be reciprocal (Ahmad, 2000: 1). These privileges were valid during Sultan’s lifetime, and an extension was only possible with the successor’s approval (Naff, 1977: 98).

To sum things up, Ottoman elites, together with their material strength, saw themselves at the top of the international order. The territorial expansion and the material-military asymmetries between the Ottoman state and the other parties of the international order consolidated the Ottoman Sultan’s self-esteem, enabling the Empire’s rules to differentiate themselves as the constitutive actor of the world order. During the period of expansion, in addition to material—military and economic strength—ideational—Islamic political culture—also propelled the Ottoman Empire’s inter-subjective positioning in the medieval world, enabling the Ottoman Empire’s rulers to employ international socialization practices peculiar to the Ottoman Empire. Considering the Ottoman strategizing of these two socialization practices as status symbols, it is possible to claim that status symbols were both means (functionality) and ends in themselves. While material symbols—military and economic power—are instrumentalized to achieve imperial missions (expansion), they simultaneously serve to stabilize the state’s ontological security. Conversely, Islam was utilized as a legitimizing symbol, especially in Ottomans’ interactions with Muslim and non-Muslim audiences. In a geopolitical order where the world is divided among regional and multipolar powers, Ottomans could survive with their sui generis standards and status symbols consolidated by their relative position and hierarchical status, further enhancing their status in the international order.

The fall of the status symbols

Permanent representation abroad and sending/receiving envoys

Ottoman Empire’s idea of non-reciprocity being a sign of strength and superiority faced a real challenge when the Renaissance diplomacy of Italian city-states became the dominant modus operandi of the modern international system. In the aftermath of the decline of papal authority in the late medieval era, Italy experienced a power vacuum. Small sovereign territorial entities—city-states—appeared good at trade and developing new technologies, thus reducing their chances of being eliminated by large and more powerful city-states (Mattingly, 1988 [1955]: 50). This balance of power system first appeared in 15th-century Renaissance Italy and changed how affairs were conducted with other sovereign entities. War-making was professionalized, and belligerence was replaced by diplomacy, negotiation, interdependence, and multilateralism.

As Mattingly underlines, 15th-century Italian sovereign territorial entities’ invention of new techniques to manage their affairs with other sovereign entities dramatically changed the social milieu, and medieval war heroes were replaced by modern diplomatic heroes—permanent resident embassies, special envoys, and professional diplomats. Quoted from Bernard du Rosier (1400–1475)—a juris and ecclesiastic who penned one of the first guidelines for diplomats—the notion of the brutality of war and sanctity of human existence of Renaissance humanism also contributed to the emergence of new standards of earthly life. Although it seems idealistic, Rossier defined peace as a public good that should be established and protected for the best interest of mankind (Mattingly, 1988 [1955]: 42). Thus, the Renaissance determined both the new standards of civilization and the new standards of conducting inter-sovereign affairs. This process of diplomats supplementing soldiers expanded the upper Alps, becoming the dominant mode of managing inter-sovereign affairs in Europe. Invented in the Italian city-states of the 15th century, modern diplomacy spread to the north. It was adopted by European powers in the 16th century, consolidated with the recognition of the extraterritoriality principle in the 17th century (Westphalian order), and strengthened by the development of the diplomatic corps in the 18th century. It reached its current form with the Concert of Europe system (1815 Vienna Congress) that provisioned the principle of legal equality of territorial states (Yurdusev, 2004: 10–11). Modern IR matured in the 19th century when a new order was articulated in line with the principles of legal equality of territorial sovereign states, diplomatic representation, international recognition, and multilateralism. Ottoman Empire did not de jure take part in this European-led international system until the Treaty of Paris in 1856 when the European powers first recognized the Empire as an equal actor of the European international system (Adanır, 2005).

Regarding diplomatic practices, the Ottoman Empire was a partial late-comer in European-style diplomacy. While, for example, when the Ottomans took over Constantinople in 1453, Venetian and Ragusian representatives were already present there (Kafadar, 1997: 67), permanent ambassadors from the West only started trickling into the Ottoman capital starting from the 16th century (Yurdusev, 2004: 2). However, reciprocating the presence of European powers in Constantinople and sending permanent ambassadors abroad would not become the norm for the Ottoman Empire up until the appointment of Yusuf Agah Efendi as the ambassador of the Ottoman Empire to London in 1793 as part of Selim III’s Nizam-ı Cedid (New Order) Reforms (Naff, 1963: 303). Thus, the non-reciprocity in sending permanent envoys ended with the appointment of Yusuf Agah Efendi to London as the permanent representative in 1793, followed by several other permanent appointments in the following couple of years to Vienna (1794), Berlin (1795), and Paris (1795) (Naff, 1963: 304). Before the appointment of the permanent ambassadors, some as part of Selim III’s Nizam-ı Cedid Reforms and some before that, various non-permanent ambassadors were also sent to Western capitals to observe the life and developments in Europe (Findley, 1995; Işıksel, 2018: 8; Stein, 1985). In addition to temporary and permanent ambassadors, starting in 1725, consuls would be appointed to especially cities of commercial importance to protect the commercial interests of the Ottoman merchants (Findley, 1972: 396–397).

The appointment of consuls and later permanent representatives to European capitals throughout the late 18th century was not coincidental. This was a reflection of the decline of the Empire’s military prowess that had started a century earlier, beginning with the Concession of Zsitvatorok (1606). This concession manifested the waning power and, thus, the status of the Empire in two ways. First, it was the first ever Ottoman diplomatic treaty where the Ottoman Sultan considered a European sovereign—the Habsburg Emperor—its equal, thus giving up the tradition that refused to consider Christian powers equal (Naff, 1977: 97). Second, this would be the first treaty that would be “dictated” to the Ottoman Empire rather than negotiated, as it had been the case in the past centuries, further shattering the idea of Ottoman invincibility (Naff, 1977: 97). When treaties started to be dictated to the Ottoman Empire rather than being negotiating with the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman rulers would welcome the mediation of European powers, thus, probably unwillingly, removing one of the last mental barriers that stood in front of Ottoman non-admission of Europe as an equal power (Naff, 1977: 97).

The failure of the Second Siege of Vienna in 1683, on the other hand, would eventually trigger the Ottoman military defeat and retreat from Eastern and Central Europe, resulting in the Battle of Zenta (1697) and the subsequent signing of the Treaty of Karlowitz between the Holy League and the Ottoman Empire in 1699. First, the Treaty brought the most significant territorial loss since the Empire’s founding, creating a balance of power that favored Christian Europe (Yelçe, 2021: 318). Second, the treaty also pushed the Ottomans, who claimed universal sovereignty, to recognize, for the first time, properly drawn borders and agree on the territorial integrity and, thus, the sovereignty of its rivals (Abou-el-Haj, 1969: 467). Symbolically, on the other hand, the treaty and the territorial loss translated into the “loss of status and prestige” of the Ottoman Empire (Burçak, 2007: 148). With the empire losing its military might, military activism and the very same diplomatic practices that ostensibly showed Ottoman superiority to the world would indicate Ottoman inferiority. The same modes of interaction and diplomatic practices would manifest a compromised Ottoman sovereignty, allotting the Ottoman Empire into the “less civilized” category (Kayaoğlu, 2010: Ch. 4; Özsu, 2016: 132), pushing the Ottoman Empire way down in the international hierarchy of states. Thus, the image of “uncivilized” waring Turk motivated by ghaza—a self-ascribed significant symbol of the Ottoman expansion—was now a burden on the shoulders—a stigma of sorts, so to speak—of the Ottoman Sultans who endeavored to stop the Empire’s territorial shrinking, to take part in the new world order composed by brand-new political entities—modern sovereign nation-states—and to penetrate the new European balance of power. In light of these, we argue that status symbols have a fluctuating nature in the sense that their innate meanings are subject to change over time and political context.

With these material and symbolic defeats, the Ottoman rulers realized that if they had to survive, they had to do diplomacy not in the Ottoman way but in the European way. Diplomacy, which was once dismissed, became a priority in the Ottoman court and would now be essential for the survival of the Empire. The result of this (forced) change of mentality was the launching of a series of reforms in the Ottoman Empire in the late 18th century, in which the Ottoman rulers were obliged to overhaul their military and bureaucracy, but most importantly, change the way they approached the idea of inclusion in the European international society.

With the Empire’s power waning, extraterritoriality and capitulations, legal and economic privileges, once the source and a sign of superiority and thus a status symbol for the Ottoman Empire, would cease to become so, quickly becoming a source of indignation, manifesting the Empire’s inferiority (Ahmad, 2000: 1). The downward turn with these privileges would come first with the concession granted to the French, which effectively removed the condition that these privileges were subject to the approval of each and every new Sultan ascending to the throne, thereby making the capitulations continuous across the reign of the different Sultans (Naff, 1977: 101). The second downturn would come in 1783 when the Russian Empire turned the privileges granted by the 1774 Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca into a binding treaty, again just like the French removed the Sultan’s potential revocation in the future (Naff, 1977: 102). Part of the reason that turned these trade privileges into an instrument of exploitation by the Westerners was the coupling of the trade privileges with extraterritoriality—giving the holders of capitulation not only trade advantages but also having the legal jurisdiction of their country within the Ottoman Empire, thus extending the jurisdiction and the sovereignty of their country at the expense of the violating the Ottoman Empire’s jurisdiction and sovereignty (Naff, 1977: 92, 1984: 158). All these thus would make the issue of capitulations and extraterritoriality turn into a matter of sovereignty (Kayaoğlu, 2010: 3–4), but more importantly, an issue of “standards of civilization” (Gong, 1984: 187; Özsu, 2016). Once a status symbol, these privileges became a stigma or a status of inferiority inferiority. Because they indicated that the Ottoman Empire was effectively allowing the erosion of its sovereignty, and by doing so, was also showing that it was an inferior state in the system and more importantly, the existence of the capitulations meant that the legal system of the Ottoman Empire was not en par with the European ones thus one more time qualifying the Ottoman to an inferior status (Özsu, 2016: 132). This was an argument supported by foreign observers of Turkey, who, writing as early as in the early 20th century, would justify the existence of these capitulations granted to the foreigners as a right stemming from the corrupt and unreliable nature of the Turkish legal system (Brown, 1914: 8; Pears, 1911: 341). Moreover, as much as they were sure about their rights to have a separate legal system, the European observers were also quite aware of the ire that the capitulations caused among the Ottomans. To quote from an American author from his 1914 book titled Foreigners in Turkey: Their Juridical Status,

the result of this condition of affairs has been an attitude of irritating superiority on the part of the privileged foreigner; a corresponding resentful hostility on the part of the humiliated Turk and incessant diplomatic controversies of a most trying nature. (Brown, 1914: iii)

Ottoman rulers and bureaucrats would, too, quickly realize that capitulations were nothing but a sign of Ottoman weakness, subordination, and inferiority, a major obstacle before the economic development of the country and a violation of Ottoman sovereignty and thus a barrier standing in front of the “equal” treatment of the Ottoman Empire at the international level (Ahmad, 2000: 6–9). Put differently, the capitulations and extraterritorial privileges given to foreigners were nothing but a loss of status for the Empire. Demanding sovereign equality, to end the inferior status of the Empire within the international order, the Ottoman Empire tried to find the ways to eliminate extraterritoriality and capitulations once and for all to achieve a status en par with the West. Such an opportunity arose at the Paris Conference that would convene at the end of the Crimean War, which was concluded with the Treaty of Paris. For most scholars studying the IR of the Ottoman Empire, the Treaty of Paris (1856) has been considered one of the critical milestones in the de jura admission of the Ottoman Empire into the European international society, confirming de facto Ottoman existence in the European international system (Göl, 2003; Naff, 1984; Yurdusev and Yurdusev, 1999). However, this initial attempt to renegotiate the capitulations through the Ottoman “equality” that was granted due to this conference stayed on paper. According to Kayaoğlu, the admission of the Ottoman Empire into European international society and recognizing of non-interference in its internal affairs was simply a decision of strategy to prevent the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire by Russians. As a result, being admitted to the European international society did not automatically grant the Ottoman Empire an equal status with the European states (Kayaoğlu, 2010: 111–112).

The inability of the rulers of the Ottoman Empire to reach the desired outcome in terms of sovereign equality would create an Empire that straddled between perceptions of inferiority and superiority. These symbolic ebbs and flows would be complemented by the adoption of standards of modernity that aimed to upgrade the Empire’s status in material ways ranging from searching for colonies in Africa (Minawi, 2016) to acquiring ironclad ships (Güvenç, 2011: 33), now what has come to be termed as “the longest century of the Empire.” That transition, on the other hand, would give way a move from status-enhancing status-seeking to status-achieving status-seeking in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.

Conclusion

This piece explored how two status-enhancing status symbols of the early Ottoman Empire—its socialization practices related to sending and receiving envoys/establishing permanent representations abroad and granting capitulations/extraterritorial privileges to foreigners—over the course of time transformed into a stigma, signaling the loss of a status symbol as well as a loss of status. The status symbols were based on the real superiority derived from the Empire’s military might that would continue until the late 17th early 18th centuries and, partially, on the perceived superiority that stemmed from the rules of Islam/Eastern mysticism. The way the Ottoman Empire socialized was, in turn, only a result of this claim of superiority but also became the consequence of it, with socialization functioning as a status symbol, enhancing and producing the self-ascribed status and superiority. The unilateral and non-reciprocal granting of the initial capitulations/extraterritoriality was a sign of Ottoman superiority and distinctiveness as these capitulations/extraterritoriality were regarded as the outcome of the grace of the Ottoman Empire in an attempt to influence the European balance of power indirectly. The non-reciprocity in the receiving foreign envoys in the Ottoman Empire also showed a comparable pattern. With the almost continuous military superiority of the Ottoman Empire, the Empire did not need to send permanent representation abroad, while foreign envoys were part and parcel of Constantinople even before the Ottoman arrived in this city in 1453. The Ottoman case is illustrative in that it did not need European recognition for status, as the status was status-enhancing, it was self-ascribed and self-enhancing and reproduced practices and socialization into the international system. Put differently, it was the religiously informed military might that fueled the status of the Empire and, thus, the Empire’s status symbols, not the recognition.

However, in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, with the waning military might and territorial losses of the Empire, the very elements of diplomatic practices of Ottoman socialization into the international society that was once the sign of Ottoman status and superiority started to denote Ottoman inferiority. The capitulations and extraterritoriality showed a compromised Ottoman sovereignty, which, from a legal perspective, would qualify the Empire as only a “semi-civilized” state unfit to join the “family of nations.” On the other hand, not having permanent representation abroad would convey the idea of the Ottoman Empire not being en par with the European powers and being deprived of European know-how, which the Ottoman Empire needed to reform the military and bureaucracy. The Ottoman Empire would try to combat these “deficiencies” that would be commensurate with the Empire being placed in various ways in an inferior status in the European eyes, lacking status. While the Empire would fight tooth and nail to eliminate the capitulations and extraterritorial privileges and thus regain its legal sovereignty, permanent representations would be established first in 1793 initially and then in the 1840s, more enduringly, to make sure that not only information from Europe—the enemy that was once inferior but now needed to be emulated for the survival of the Empire.

Based on these, we conclude that status symbols and their attached meanings are the social constructs that change over time in line with the zeitgeist, military prowess, religous and cultural self-attributes of superiority and the place where states occupy in the international hierarchy. As we elaborate above, in the case of the Ottoman Empire, especially focusing on the history of the Empire from the 13th to 14th century till the beginning of its decline in the late 17th century and early 18th century, the Empire’s self-ascribed spatial and temporal attributes, fueled by military prowess and religious pride, helped the rulers of the Empire to establish their own rules of socialization into the international system, which then became another status symbol enhancing the status of the Empire. So, during its rise, the rising power might not need any further approvals from the outside world and can make and impose its “difference” as superiority and thus as a status symbol, which then feeds into the making of other status symbols, as long as this is supported by military power which comes with territorial expansion. In this political context, Ottoman Sultans did not require any recognition by outsiders who had limited military and economic capacity to run the international order.

In relation to all these, we can conclude that the relative position of actors in the world hierarchies shapes political elites’ mental maps and policy priorities, giving us a sense of geopolitical imaginations about self and other. This inter-subjective and subjective positioning of self and other shapes the incentives to become a part of the international elites’ club or a specific network of international fidelity. These status games are, at the same time, constitutive of the construction of national symbols of status and the meanings attached to them. In addition, as the introduction of this special issue highlights, status symbols’ success depends on the social context and the value attributed by social actors who associate their possession as the sign of a higher status. Thus, status symbols are liquid social forms marking the international status of an actor, and their effect varies across time and the socio-political context of the national and international system. As discussed in this piece, symbols that professed Ottoman superiority, translating to a higher status in the hierarchy, later represented Ottoman inferiority and stigma. This is why the symbols of Ottoman unilateralism and a sense of superiority could not resonate with the modern international society, which was the child of a new era.