Territorial design and grand strategy in the Ottoman Empire

Territorial design and grand strategy in the Ottoman Empire. Territory, Politics, Governance. How could the Ottoman Empire preserve intrastate peace and stability from its emergence in the 14th century until the 19th in regions – especially the Balkans and the Middle East – that later became hotbeds for ethnic, religious, and sectarian conflict while at the same time fighting numerous interstate wars? This paper offers a novel explanation for this puzzle, based on the notion of ‘territorial design’. The Ottomans were able to preserve internal peace and stability thanks to their flexible and pragmatic approach to managing the space–society–politics nexus, which in fact followed from their grand strategy for expansion in a cost-effective fashion. The theoretical and historical analysis provided here also has implications for tackling macro-historical puzzles and patterns from an interdisciplinary perspective, positioning the Ottoman case vis-à-vis international relations theory, and motivating questions about the origins of the present-day territorial order.