A Historical-Sociological Overview of Tobacco Regie in Ottoman Empire and Iran on the Basis of Collective Action

This article makes a comparison of capabilities of trading classes in Ottoman Empire and Qajar Iran to take collective action, on the basis of “tobacco trade”, which is similarly important for both sides. Although “tobacco trade” may seem to be both directly related to the economy and a micro-scale issue at fi rst glance, this study, extending beyond a mere reductionism simply referring to relations of production and class confl icts, is based on a multi-context and a relational perspective taking other political and social issues into account, and aims at a universal analysis through a particular case. It should be noted here that “path dependence” method is employed here, which investigates how similar phenomena of similar times and places end up differently and which explains specifi c cases as “a product of long, slow and historically-unique processes”.