The Omnipresent Sultan: Spying and Surveillance in the Late Ottoman Empire

• In Event: The Authoritarian Playbook: Tactics Across Time and Regime Type

Abstract

How can an autocratic regime with weak administrative capacity sustain stability despite its inability to systematically monitor dissent? This article examines the role of perceived surveillance in maintaining regime stability under Abdulhamid II in the late 19th-century Ottoman Empire. It argues that in a context of low administrative capacity, the Sultan relied on a decentralized network of amateur spies to cultivate an image of omnipresence, inducing fear and self-censorship rather than systematic intelligence gathering. Using three original data sets: spying documents, demographic information on spies and the spatial-temporal distribution of the opposition Young Turk cells, the results of the Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial models reveal the limited capacity of the empire to gather information, with the spying efficacy decreasing significantly with distance from the capital, Istanbul. The perceived omnipresence of the Sultan pushed dissidents to organize in exile, particularly in European cities. By analyzing a historical, low-capacity autocracy, this research contributes to the literature on authoritarian resilience, surveillance, and repression, offering insights into the enduring legacies of coercive regimes and their impact on interpersonal trust.

Author

• Firat Kimya, Swarthmore College