The genesis of the 'Exceptional' Republic: the permanency of the political crisis and the constitution of legal emergency power in Turkey

Almost half of the political life has been experienced under the state of emergency and state of siege policies in the Turkish Republic. In spite of such a striking number and continuity in the deployment of legal emergency powers, there are just a few legal and political studies examining the reaso...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:British journal of Middle Eastern studies 2019-10, Vol.46 (5), p.714-734
Main Author: Yilmaz, Zafer
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Citizenship
Constitutional law
Constitutions
Deployment
Discretionary power
Emergency powers
Evolution
Genealogy
Hegemony
Judiciary
Legality
Legitimacy
Nation states
Oppression
Political crises
Political power
Politics
Rights
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Summary:Almost half of the political life has been experienced under the state of emergency and state of siege policies in the Turkish Republic. In spite of such a striking number and continuity in the deployment of legal emergency powers, there are just a few legal and political studies examining the reasons for such permanency in governing practices. To fill this gap, this paper aims to discuss one of the most important sources of the 'permanent' political crisis in the country: the historical evolution of legal emergency power. In order to highlight how these policies have intensified the highly fragile citizenship regime by weakening the separation of power, repressing the use of political rights and increasing the discretionary power of both the executive and judiciary authorities, the paper sheds light on the emergence and production of a specific form of legality based on the idea of emergency and the principle of executive prerogative. In that context, it aims to provide a genealogical explanation of the evolution of the exceptional form of the nation-state, which is based on the way political society, representation, and legitimacy have been instituted and accompanying failure of the ruling classes in building hegemony in the country.
ISSN:1353-0194
1469-3542
DOI:10.1080/13530194.2019.1634393