Security Memory, Knowledge Production, and State Formation: The Armenian Question in the Ottoman Empire (1876–1908)
This article examines the securitization of the Armenian question through an analysis of the understudied security policies and practices of the late Ottoman empire. Moving beyond abstract formulations of state security anxieties, it highlights specific bureaucratic routines, knowledge production, and everyday operations that supported governance and state violence. Using sources from Ottoman, British, and US archives, the study traces how the Ottoman government constructed the Armenian question as a security issue and elucidates the pivotal role of the ministry of foreign affairs as it coordinated with other state institutions and promoted pro-Ottoman narratives internationally through diplomacy and press campaigns. It also analyses the porous boundary between domestic and foreign intelligence, demonstrating how surveillance and repression were not merely reactions but key parts of the late Ottoman state’s structural changes. It also reveals how the securitization of the Armenian question transformed into the securitization of the Armenian people.