A fateful beginning: Mehmed Cavid Bey, politics and finance in the global Middle East, 1908–14

Abstract

Ozan Ozavci zooms in on the life of Mehmet Cavid Bey, a liberal Young Turk, three times Minister of Finance in the Ottoman Empire, and a dönme (a descendant of Jews forcefully converted to Islam during the seventeenth century). Exploring the analytical benefits of the notion of the exceptional normal, Ozavci shows that Cavid went from being exceptional to being normal as the financial constraints of the Ottoman Empire narrowed his ability to maintain his early liberal views on free trade, foreign investment and a genuine belief in a European civilizing mission. Cavid became more attuned to economic nationalism; his views aligning themselves with those of other Young Turks of the period. In a global historical perspective, then, we may learn – by probing into a seemingly exceptional person and embedding him in the normalcies of broad structural forces – how normalcies discipline, entrap and normalize even those seeking change from a marginal position.