Long-Lasting State of Emergency: Use of (In)security for Consolidation of Power in Turkey

Abstract

ABSTRACT The failed coup attempt in July 2016 initiated a two-year long state of emergency (SoE) in Turkey. While studies have revealed its effects of power concentration in the government’s hands, what lacks to this point is a holistic and contextual analysis of how the SoE made it possible for the AKP Government to expand its power and through which mechanisms. This article adopts the conceptions of Securitization and the Sociology of Power and argues that the 2016–18 SoE is the latest manifestation of a long tradition of practices of securitization as well as the implementation of exceptional states.