Security Governmentality in Turkey

  • Tuncay Kardas

Student thesis: Doctoral ThesisDoctor of Philosophy

Abstract

The thesis asks a central question: what is the nature of the relationship between state security and domestic politics in contemporary Turkey? It aims to show that although the pendulum of Turkish politics has swung back and forth between democratic elections and military interventions, in the last decade a new set of historically conditioned discourses and practices of state security have fused the political and military realms to produce a peculiar regime which I call security govemmentality. Understanding the traits of Turkish security governmentality is the task of the thesis. It adopts a genealogical approach. The subject-matter analyzes both the historical-political conditions within which security governmentality emerged as a dominant practice of rule and the prospects of its dissolution. Indeed, the dissolution of security governmentality gained an air of expectancy particularly after 1999 when Turkey was granted an 'official candidacy' and started to adapt the EU democratic membership conditionality. Within this framework, the thesis explores the peculiar entanglement between security and politics in Turkey, which has produced an uneven distribution of power between the military and the society, and examines the challenges of the EU membership reform process to Turkey's security governmentality.
Date of Award06 Dec 2005
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • Aberystwyth University
SponsorsSakarya University
SupervisorMike Williams (Supervisor) & Ken Booth (Supervisor)

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