The Legacy of State of Emergency in Turkey: Analysis of the Incarceration Practices as an Apparatus of the Exceptional Regimes

This thesis focuses on the state of emergency period in Turkey between 2016-2018 and its implications in incarceration places. Drawing on theoretical, historical, and empirical foundations, I attempt to investigate how the suspension of norm impacted prisons and detention centres, and in which ways incarceration was repurposed to silence the entire opposition. First of all, as a result of the historical and theoretical analysis, I contend that the state of exception is a primary component of raison d'état of Turkey, often employed with various forms of violence to stifle the long-standing foes of the regime. In line with Giorgio Agamben, my argument is that the state of exception is a form of governance which has become intrinsic to modern state. In this vein, the AKP government inherits and maintains this tradition. On the other hand, 2016-2018 state of emergency period produced its specific juridico-political techniques, such as 'atypical decrees’, total seizure of legislative and judicial branches by the executive, as well as absence of domestic and international remedies. As a result, there is a structural continuity in terms of the manifestation of the state's authority, but the AKP government established a much more well-organized system than ever and employed certain advanced legal and political tools to purge its opponents. The suspension of law for two years has had even more severe ramifications for prisons, as prisoners’ fundamental rights are under constant legal and political threat even under ‘normal’ conditions. Following the coup attempt, Turkey witnessed an incarceration boom, frequently accompanied by serious allegations of torture and ill-treatment. The government introduced extensive legislative changes targeting incarceration places, granted impunity to officers, thereby exacerbating Turkey’s already problematic prison regime. Through decrees and impunity clauses, the fundamental safeguards against torture and ill-treatment were effectively removed and the prisoners and detainees were stripped of their status as a subject of human rights. In addition, this study attempted to demonstrate that, in order for the political power to complement the widespread purge of critics of the regime, the imprisonment was used as one of the most important apparatuses of the state of exception. In that sense, both for the incarcerated and those outside, the penal regime served a dual function.