Twenty-first century Turkey has been shaped by two conflicting trends: all-encompassing reform in almost all aspects of law that were transformative if not altogether progressive, and an increasing erosion of the rule of law, which finally culminated in a nation-wide emergency regime and the April 2017 constitutional referendum. The pressing question for many is why the promising reform era was abandoned for crude repression? In this essay, we answer this question by challenging its very foundation and pointing instead to an alternative line of inquiry concerning Turkish politics and society, one that focuses precisely on the interplay between reform and repression. The constitutional referendum of April 2017 compels observers and scholars of Turkey to reevaluate the interplay between reform and repression. Rather than reading contemporary Turkey as a case of relapse from reform into repression, as many commentators do, we suggest approaching reform and repression as concomitant and complementary modes of government.
In the 1930s, the two primary goals of the Turkish state were to establish national unity and to modernize the country. The achievement of these goals was linked to the transformation of the human body in line with modern, rational and scientific values. The body politics of the new regime aspired to discipline society in order to create modern, healthy and dutiful citizens by regulating the human body in many spheres of life, including clothing, aesthetics, health, reproduction, childcare and housekeeping. Eugenics emerged as a part of the state’s hygienic and ethical regulation of the human body. The state abolished abortion, mandated pre-marital examinations of couples, established childcare institutions, educated mothers, and aimed to prevent epidemics and alcoholism. The Turkish eugenicists were a small group of medical doctors who were influential in shaping these public policies. In accordance with the general Republican discourse, the eugenicists were critical of both traditional society and the Ottoman regime. The eugenicists founded their criticism on the old regime’s ignorance of modern hygienic and reproductive practices. Although Turkish eugenic discourse was influenced by Western eugenics literature, it was also shaped by the particular concerns of the Kemalist regime such as natalism, childcare and social hygiene policies. The collectivist discourse of the Kemalist regime was so dominant that, in contrast to their European and American counterparts, the Turkish eugenicists were not at all concerned with ethnic and class diversity within society.
What happens when authoritarian populists lose elections, even when the playing field is tilted in their favor? When Turkey's long-ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) started performing poorly at the polls, it set about undoing the results. Since 2016, the ruling party has dismissed more than 150 democratically elected mayors-mostly in Kurdish-majority cities and on suspect terrorism-related charges-and replaced them with state-appointed trustees called kayyums. With these power grabs, the AKP not only captures the political offices it lost but also expands patronage networks, erodes opposition support, and makes challenging its dominance harder than ever.The adoption of this strategy marks a new phase in Turkey's authoritarianism. Before a failed coup attempt in July 2016, kayyums existed in civil law only as a way to establish guardianship over a dead or missing person's property or, beginning in the 2000s, to manage firms in crisis and resolve financial and administrative stalemates. Using the temporary emergency power approved by parliament to eliminate putschists after the coup attempt, the AKP regime amended the municipality law by executive decree, giving itself the authority to replace elected officials with kayyums. But the regime still holds this power today, along with a host of others it gained when a 2017 constitutional referendum transformed the 94-year-old parliamentary system into a presidential one and made numerous temporary emergency measures permanent.Elections were pivotal in Turkey's democratization, and they have been key to its backsliding under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who first came to power as prime minister in 2003. Little more than a decade later, the country once described as a model
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