II. Meşrutiyet Dönemi Yönetsel Reform Çabalarının Meşrulaştırılmasında Paternalist Yönetim

This study examines the functions of administrative paternalism in legitimizing administrative and constitutional reforms by the ruling elites of II. Constitutional Monarchy period. Thus, it aims to contribute to the literature on the concept of legitimacy and communication of elites and institutions within their sociological environments, as well as administrative history. The late Ottoman Empire period included reforms towards modernization in the socio-political field under conditions where capitalist economic relations and social classes derived from their relatively weak. There are gaps in the literature about attitudes and rhetoric of bureaucratic and political elites in the face of the problem of modern constitutional and administrative institutions, which became increasingly evident in superstructure during II. Constitutional Monarchy period, and their ability to connect with their sociological environments where this change was relatively less experienced. In this context, constitutional and administrative reforms regarding the administrative organization and state-society relations between 1908 and 1918 were examined through government programs and justifications of law submitted to the Ottoman parliament. These official documents were discussed with the help of new institutionalism and organizational sociology theories. Subsequently, the legitimizing rhetoric of administrative elites within the framework of Weberian legitimacy classification was observed, taking into account the presence of paternalist tendencies. In this research, it is argued that administrative paternalist tendency functions as a bridge between administrative reforms that are carried out consistent with the legal-rational socio-political structure and communities that form the social environment of these reforms and traditionalist tendencies of general sociological structure.