Police and Masculinities in Transition in Turkey: From Macho to Reformed to Militarized Policing

Abstract

Policing is a gendered and gendering institution. However, the centrality of masculinities to the reproduction of public policing has received little scholarly attention. Drawing from fieldwork, including thirty-five in-depth interviews with police officials between 2013 and 2015, this study explores how public policing and police masculinities have shaped and influenced one another during Turkey’s move away from the established principles of electoral democracy as part of what I refer to as its “authoritarian relapse.” The study finds that macho and militarized masculinities constitute two distinctive modes of police masculinity against which the reformed masculinity of the “new police” stands in stark contrast. It contributes to debates on political masculinities by demonstrating the intertwining of state and masculine power. The analysis suggests that police masculinities and public policing take shape in line with the degree of commitment to democratization.

Policing Student Protests in Turkey: From the Promise of ‘Citizen in Uniform’ to Dictating ‘létat c’est moi’

“…Ekşi ( 2019 , p. 491) proposes that “policing and police masculinities have shaped and influenced one another during Turkey’s move away from the established principles of electoral democracy.” She divides public policing and associated police masculinities across three successive periods: old macho policing before the 2000s, reformed policing during the first decade of the new century, and militarized policing since 2013 (Ekşi, 2019 , p. 493). “The third term, especially since the Gezi protests has been characterized by increasing authoritarianism in the government’s policies and discourse.…”

“…“The third term, especially since the Gezi protests has been characterized by increasing authoritarianism in the government’s policies and discourse. Because the government exercises direct control of the Turkish National Police through the Ministry of the Interior, both police–citizen relationships and the policing model have been strongly affected by this shift in governmental policies and discourse” (Ekşi, 2019 , p. 495). It should be stressed that before the Gezi protests the period was not too rosy.…”

Violent masculinities

“…In this way, many UPP officers rejected the feminization of policing by continuing to adhere to militarized practices. Moreover, they rejected the limits imposed on wild masculinity by policing paradigms that draw on a rhetoric of human rights (Ekşi 2018; Herbert 2001).…”

“…The psychiatrist offered alternative models of masculinity, urging them to incorporate soft dimensions, similar to those elsewhere described as “emergent masculinity” (Inhorn and Wentzell 2011) and “reformed masculinity” (Ekşi 2018)—new and “modern” forms of civilized masculinity that downplay the importance of expressing traditional masculinity, such as violence and virility, in favor of other kinds of behavior. Expressing vulnerability or frustration, which would otherwise be perceived as a sign of weakness, was thereby reconfigured as an act of power: a strategy of manipulation.…”

The Cultural Limits of Challenging Hegemonic Masculinity: Critical Analysis of Online Responses to Axe Turkey Advertisements

“…This research will concentrate on how the process of masculinizing occurs in Axe Turkey's advertising campaign and focuses on audience comments to estimate how masculinizing takes place in the digital culture. In the Turkish context, hegemonic masculinity has been discussed by many authors from sociological, anthropological, and political perspectives (Atuk 2019;Boratav et al 2014;Ekşi 2019;Keskin 2018;Ozbay and Soybakis 2020). However, media analysis, particularly analysis of how advertisements reproduce or challenge masculinities, has been neglected.…”