Books, Edited Volumes, and Monographs

Negotiating Democracy and Religious Pluralism: India, Pakistan and Turkey (ed. with Sudipta Kaviraj and Vatsal Naresh), Oxford University Press. August 2021.

Shared Sacred Sites: A Contemporary Pilgrimage (ed. with Dionigi Albera and Manoël Pénicaud), CUNY Publications, 2018.

Shared Sacred Sites in the Balkans and in the Mediterranean. (ed. with Dionigi Albera, Dimitris Papadopoulos and Manoël Pénicaud), Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art Publications, 2018.

 Choreographies of Shared Sacred Sites: Religion, Politics, and Conflict Resolution

This anthology explores the dynamics of shared religious sites in Turkey, the Balkans, Palestine/Israel, Cyprus, and Algeria, indicating where local and national stakeholders maneuver between competition and cooperation, coexistence and conflict. Contributors probe the notion of coexistence and the logic that underlies centuries of “sharing,” exploring when and why sharing gets interrupted—or not—by conflict, and the policy consequences.

These essays map the choreographies of shared sacred spaces within the framework of state-society relations, juxtaposing a site’s political and religious features and exploring whether sharing or contestation is primarily religious or politically motivated. While religion and politics are intertwined phenomena, the contributors to this volume understand the category of “religion” and the “political” as devices meant to distinguish between the theological and confessional aspects of religion and the political goals of groups. Their comparative approach better represents the transition in some cases of sites into places of hatred and violence while in other instances they remain noncontroversial. The essays clearly delineate the religious and political factors that contribute to the context and causality of conflict at these sites and draw on history and anthropology to shed light on the often rapid switch from relative tolerance to distress to peace and calm.

Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective

Combining comparative history, network and organizational analysis, this book provides a more systematic assessment of the social organization of empire at its different moments; from emergence, social organization of diversity and of imperial maintenance, to the politics of dissent and decline. The Ottoman empire is the primary focus, illuminated by patterns of similarity and difference with the Habsburg, Roman, Byzantine, and Russian empires. Cambridge University Press 2008.

Bandits and Bureaucrats: The Ottoman Route to State Centralization, 1994, Cornell University Press. Translated into Turkish, 1999.

After Empire: Multiethnic Societies and Nation-Building: The Soviet Union, and the Russian, Habsburg and Ottoman Empires, ed. with Mark von Hagen 1997, Westview Press.

Alternative Routes to State Formation: A Relational Approach to Politics, Culture and Society in Japan, China and Turkey, with Eiko Ikegami and R. Bin Wong. In process.

 

Book Awards

Other Writings

Research Articles

“The Politics of Majoritarian Domination in Turkey and India,” (with Vatsal Naresh) in Negotiating Democracy and Religious Pluralism: India, Pakistan, and Turkey, eds. Karen Barkey, Sudipta Kaviraj and Vatsal Naresh, Oxford University Press. August 2021.

2021. “Shared Sacred Sites: Reflections on the State and Protection.” Journal of Law, Religion and State, Vol. 9 (1): 67-94.

“Contemporary Cases of Shared Sacred Sites: Forms of Othering or Belonging?” Othering and Belonging: Expanding the Circle of Human Concern, Issue 3 Fall 2018.

“Le monastère de Saint-Georges et ses visiteur non chrétiens.” In Coexistences: Lieux saint partagés en Europe et en Méditerranée, edited by Dionogi Albera and Manoël Pénicaud. Arles, Musée National de L’histoire de L’immigration / Actes Sud.

“The Ottomans and Toleration.” In Toleration in Comparative Perspective, edited by Vicki A. Spencer. Lexington Books, 2017.

“The Ottoman Empire (1299-1923): the Bureaucratization of Patrimonial Authority,” in Empire and Bureaucracy, eds. Peter Crooks and Timothy Parsons, Cambridge University Press, 2016.

“The Ottoman Millet System: Non-Territorial Autonomy and Its Contemporary Legacy,”  (with George Gavrilis) Ethnopolitics 15 (1): 24–42, (2016).

“Una Mirada Sociologica sobre la Tolerencia,” in Religión y Razón: Nuevas Cartas sobre la Tolerancia, La Maleta de Portbou, No. 8 Noviembre/Diciembre 2014.

“Political Legitimacy and Islam in the Ottoman Empire: Lessons Learned,” Philosophy and Social Criticism, 2014.

“Empires, Federated Arrangements, and Kingdoms: Using Political Models of Governance to Understand Firms’ Creative Performance,” (with Frédéric Godart) Organization Studies 34:79-104, (2013).

“Empire and Toleration: A Comparative Sociology of Toleration within Empire,” in Boundaries of Toleration, eds. Alfred Stepan and Charles Taylor, Columbia University Press, 2014.

“Aspects of Legal Pluralism in the Ottoman Empire: A Relational Field of Religious Differentiation,” in Legal Pluralism and Empires, 1500-1850, eds. Lauren Benton and Richard Ross.

“States, Regimes and Decisions: Why Jews were Expelled from Medieval England and France,” (with Ira Katznelson) Theory and Society, Vol. 40 (2011).

“Rethinking Ottoman Management of Diversity: What Can We Learn for Modern Turkey?” in Democracy, Islam and Secularism in Turkey, eds. Ahmet Kuru and Alfred Stepan, Columbia University Press, 2010.

“Comparisons Across Empires: The Critical Social Structures of the Ottomans, Russians and Habsburgs,” (with Rudi Batzell) in Tributary Empires in Global History, eds. P.F. Bang and C.A. Bayly. Palgrave Press, 2010.

“In the Lands of the Ottomans: Religion and Politics,” in Religion and the Political Imagination, eds.  Ira Katznelson and Gareth Stedman Jones, Cambridge University Press, 2010.

“Analytic Historical Sociology,” pp. 712-734 in The Oxford Handbook of Analytic Sociology, eds. Peter Bearman and Peter Hedstrom, Oxford University Press, 2009.

“Trajectoires imperiales: L’histoire connectée ou études comparées?” Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, Vol. 54-4bis; 2007.

“Islam and Toleration: Studying the Ottoman Imperial Model,” International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, Vol. 19, No. 1-2 (2007).

“Changing Modalities of Empire: A Comparative Study of the Ottoman and Habsburg Decline,” in Empire to Nation eds, Joseph W. Esherick and Hasan Kayali (London, Rowan and Littlefield, 2006).

“Hegemonic Rise and Decline in Comparative Perspective: Lessons from the Early 20thCentury,” in Hegemonic Declines: Past and Present eds., Jonathan Friedman and Christopher Chase-Dunn Paradigm Press, Boulder Colorado. September 2004.

“Network of Contention: Villages and Regional Structure in the Seventeenth Century Ottoman Empire”. Reprinted in Social Networks: Critical Concepts in Sociology, Routledge Press, 2002.

“Negotiated Paths to Nationhood: A Comparison of Hungary and Romania in the Early Twentieth Century,” East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 14, No. 3; Fall 2000.

“Networks of Contention: Villages and Regional Structure in the Seventeenth Century Ottoman Empire,” with R. van Rossem, American Journal of Sociology, 102: 5 (March 1997).

“In Different Times: Scheduling and Social Control in the Ottoman Empire, 1550-1650,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 38: 3 (1996).

“Rebellious Alliances: The State and Peasant Unrest in Early 17th Century France and the Ottoman Empire,” American Sociological Review, 56 (December 1991), pp. 699-715.

“Comparative Perspectives on the State,” with S. Parikh, The Annual Review of Sociology 17, (1991).

“The Use of Court Records in the Reconstruction of Village Networks: A Comparative Perspective,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology, XXXII, 1-2 (1991).

“States in Search of Legitimacy,” with Daniel Chirot, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Vol. XXIV, 1-2 (1983).

“Durkheim Scholarship and Suicidology,” with K. D. Breault, The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 24 (Autumn 1983).

“A Comparative Analysis of Durkheim’s Theory of Egoistic Suicide,” with K. D. Breault, The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 23 (Summer 1982).