Karen Barkey studies state centralization / decentralization, state control and social movements against states in the context of empires. Her research focuses primarily on the Ottoman empire, and recently on comparisons between Ottoman, Habsburg and Roman empires. Her book, Bandits and Bureaucrats: The Ottoman Route to State Centralization, studies the way in which the Ottoman state found new strategies of control and managed to incorporate potentially contentious forces into the Ottoman polity. She co-edited (with Mark von Hagen) After Empire: Multiethnic Societies and Nation-Building, the Soviet Union and the Russian, Ottoman, and Habsburg Empires. Her new work, Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective is a comparative study of different forms and moments of imperial organization and diversity. It is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.

Current CV