A Feminist Analysis of Security in Turkey

Simten Cosar,Gulden Ozcan

doi:10.5195/jwsr.2021.1034

Abstract

This article analyzes the securitization of the political space under the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, AKP) governments in Turkey with a critical feminist lens. We argue that a feminist reading unpacks the connection between AKP’s discursive strategies in the spheres of social and national security. We focus on the AKP’s proposals that address social policy and defense policy spheres—namely, the “Women’s Employment Package;” “Family Package;” and “Internal Security Package.” In our analysis, we start from the argument that the AKP’s terms in office represent the last phase of neoliberal transformation in the country. Packages in this phase also speak to the patchwork style of neoliberal policy making. They function as means for checking, and then, manipulating public opinion. Analysis of the packages provides insight into the AKP’s increasing resort to violence vis-á-vis opposition as well as the deepening of the economic crisis in the country in the last two decades.

Highlights

This journal is published by the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press
The post-2013 period is marked by alternative forms of non-violent opposition against the increasingly authoritarian rule of the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, AKP) and state oppression, including socio-political inequality and human rights violations
We refer to neoliberalism as the reordering of the socio-political sphere in accordance with the prerequisites of the post-Fordist accumulation regime that is characterized by the preference for transnational commercial activity over production, and private investment at the expense of public investment (Harvey 2005)

Summary

Introduction

This journal is published by the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press. After the 1980 military coup, the scope of the term national security was expanded in the new National Security Law (1983): “protecting and watching the constitutional order, national being, totality of the state as well as all its benefits including political, social, cultural and economic benefits and its contractual law against all kinds of internal and external threats” (Bayramoğlu 2004: 87-88, our translation).

Results

Conclusion