Öz
The concept of patrimonialism, which is derived from the Latin word patrimonium (inherited from the father, property), corresponds to the administrative form in which the entire political and social structure is under the personal sovereignty of the monarch, interconnected with the word Patron. The patrimonial administration approach, which also constitutes one of Halil İnalcık's important arguments in the approach to the Ottoman social structure, represents a form of sultanism in which the ruler uses the administrative organization within the state structure as her personal tool. The understanding of patrimonial administration, which began to erode in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century, was replaced by a neo-patrimonial understanding during the reign of Abdulhamid II, and this new political identity was shaped by the duality of enlightenment despotism, which formed the framework of the political and social-political attitude of Abdulhamid II. This period, which also includes the process of integrating into the modernization necessitated by the age, manifested as the phenotype of the authoritarian understanding of modernity developed by the Ottomans in the 18th century. While following a Western socio-cultural reformist line in this paradoxical political axis, Abdülhamid II wanted to consolidate her authority by exposing a dominant attitude on the other hand. However, the mentality of the reforms brought to life in this period built an order that was taken as an example in terms of form rather than the intellectual dialectic of the West.