PhD thesis defence by Halit Serkan Simen
In his dissertation project, titled 'Ruling Elite Divided: Making of Grand Vizier Koca Sinan Pasha (d. 1596) within the Evolving Ottoman Political Configuration', Halit Serkan Simen examines the political landscape of the late sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire through the career of five-times Grand Vizier Koca Sinan Pasha (d. 1596), one of the most influential statesmen of the period.
Adopting a biographical approach, the study evaluates how everyday political practices shaped imperial governance and contributed to broader institutional developments. By situating Sinan Pasha’s career within the wider Ottoman political context, the dissertation addresses significant gaps in the historiography and provides new insights into elite power struggles, network dynamics, and decision-making processes. While revisionist scholarship has drawn attention to structural transformations during this period, it has not sufficiently addressed the role of everyday political dynamics. Thus, it is crucial to link broader institutional and political changes to these dynamics and the actors who influenced them. The dissertation argues that evolving strategies for accessing power, the competitive practices of the ruling elite, and their context-specific applications are central to understanding changes in politics, institutions, the economy, diplomacy, military affairs, and society.
In five chapters organised both thematically and chronologically, the evolving institutions of the empire and the flexible roles of the actors who shaped politics are examined in parallel with Sinan Pasha’s political activities. To provide a thorough analysis, the study extensively uses Ottoman, Italian, and Habsburg primary sources. In addition to revealing the intra-court relations and intra-elite struggle for power, it also combines narrative and archival sources to shed light on the activities of trans-imperial actors and power brokers within the Ottoman ruling elite and the diplomatic and political networks of the larger Mediterranean world.