Title:
RETHINKING THE 31 MARCH INCIDENT: CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY, POWER STRUGGLES, AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT IN THE LATE OTTOMAN STATE (1860–1914)

Authors:
Dr. Siddik Arslan, Türkiye

Abstract:
This study reevaluates the 31 March Incident (April 13, 1909) as a structural threshold in the Late Ottoman State where constitutional legitimacy was tested, power relations were reconfigured, and crisis management capacity became decisive. The research demonstrates that the incident cannot be explained through the long-held dichotomy of "reactionary uprising" or "premeditated coup"; instead, it argues that this was a multi-actor crisis resulting from the collision of constitutional demands, institutional fragilities, and political competition that had accumulated since the 1860s. Employing qualitative historical research methodology and process tracing, the study integrates the concepts of legitimacy repertoires, organizational capacity, and opportunity structures within a unified theoretical framework. Findings reveal that following the Second Constitutional Period, the constitution was interpreted in contradictory ways by different actors, transforming from a ground for consensus into an arena of contestation. The research demonstrates that the Committee of Union and Progress was not the actor that directly engineered the crisis but rather one that managed the emerging crisis through its organizational capacity and turned the outcomes to its advantage. Findings on crisis management show that while the 1909 constitutional amendments alleviated the legitimacy crisis in the short term, they produced long-term consequences that narrowed the political space, weakened pluralism, and strengthened centralist tendencies. By placing the Ottoman experience in a comparative perspective alongside the Iranian Constitutional Revolution and the 1905 Russian Revolution, the study offers an original theoretical framework for understanding the structural fragilities of constitutional transition periods in late-modernizing empires. Thus, the article provides an original contribution to both Ottoman historiography and the literature on comparative politics and constitutional studies.