The marginalization of the Ottoman Empire’s state formation legacy in the Middle East a case of Eurocentrism?

Dominant academic conceptualizations of state formation in the Middle East are often exclusively associated with Western colonialism and the post-World War One settlement. Drawing on the ‘Global International Relations’ framework, this paper critiques this Eurocentric framing, which marginalizes state-building processes predating the French and British mandates. It argues that the Ottoman Empire's long rule —particularly during the Tanzimat period— left an enduring legacy of statecraft essential to understanding the region's foundations. By examining nineteenth-century reforms in Iraq and Syria, this paper seeks to rectify the Eurocentric spatio-temporal ordering of events and unveil the centrality of the West in historical narratives of the region.