Our team member 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐭 𝐀𝐫𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐩 from Bogazici University participated in the IPSA 75th anniversary conference on Democratization and Autocratization, where he presented his ongoing research (in collaboration with Deniz Erkmen): Autocratization before the Autocrat?: Institutional Continuities of Autocratic Legalism in Turkey's Protest Arena.
Recent research on democratic backsliding underlines the instrumentalization of law as a key repertoire of autocratic subversion of democratic institutions. Operating in piecemeal ways, legal measures disguise the undermining of democratic accountability and contestation behind the procedural legitimacy of law. This research, however, predominantly focuses on autocratic actors and how they deploy legalism to undermine the liberal-democratic functions of formal institutions like courts, elections, and legislatures. Such an actor-centered approach, emphasizing discontinuities with the preceding regime, does not address a crucial question: What makes this authoritarian appropriation of law possible? Are there legal frameworks and practices intrinsic to the preceding regime that enable the autocratic turn? That is, what kind of continuities do we observe in the legal measures and practices before and after the onset of autocratization? In this paper, we focus on the securitization of contention in Turkey to address these questions. We show how the way autocratic legalism operates in Turkey is layered upon the legal measures and administrative technologies developed during its long history of securitizing Kurdish and socialist contention. Focusing on historical institutional continuities helps us understand the pre-existing practices, mentalities, and frameworks of the democratic era that facilitated the authoritarian slide.
Development Communications| Gender Equality| Human Rights
6dVery informative session Gay Alessandra Ordenes, Chewe Chilufya, Corina Rebegea, Daniel Luis Macalino, Luis Donaldo Colosio Riojas. Thank you for the engagement throughout Favour Ime