Securing the Exception through Securitisation: Turkish Presidentialism as Modular Emergency

The politics of emergency has been on the rise since the 9/11 attacks both in young and Western liberal democracies. To many, this is a new international order characterised by a permanent and general exception as well as counter-terrorism measures, illiberal practices restricting or violating fundamental liberties and rights. Yet, this study suggests that what is increasingly characterising established democracies and hybrid or autocratic regimes is not the permanency of the exception, but rather the coexistence or the ‘co-mingling’ of normalcy and emergency as different modes of governance. As the recent Covid-19 pandemic illustrates, many governments could easily swing between normal and emergency modes and they may opt for the latter even in cases which are manageable through existing norms. This paper argues that emergency and the rule of law need to be seen as different, yet increasingly intertwined modes of governance: a political condition characterizing the majority of liberal and autocratic regimes today. These co-mingling or coexisting modes of governance often ‘compensate for each other’s weaknesses and together construct a stable political regime’. Hence, current emergencies may well be defined as ‘modular’ emergencies structured around the interchangeable or simultaneous use of executive decrees and ordinary legislative regulations. This paper then suggests that the coexistence of and the concomitant blurring of normalcy and emergency is achieved and sustained through perpetual practices of securitization by executive securitizing actors, i.e. governments or presidents. The perpetual practices of securitization feed on an emergency mentality where the political and legal boundaries between the norm and the exception become increasingly porous, tenuous and inconspicuous. In this grey zone of ambiguity between normalcy and emergency, it becomes increasingly difficult for societies to gauge if policies implemented are justifiable, reasonable and proportional. This study substantiates these assumptions through detailed empirical evidence from the Turkish case and by critically engaging with the Schmittian exceptionalism and the securitization theory. Turkey was ruled under a nationwide state of emergency for two years declared soon after a failed coup attempt in July 2016. Under conditions of emergency the country was brought to referendum on 16 April 2017 with the purpose of replacing the parliamentary regime with presidentialism with a very strong single executive with almost no constitutional constraints. Thus, even if the state of emergency has formally been lifted, the emergency powers have comingled with and become part of the norm and thereby, normalized and routinized within the juridical and political order in Turkey. The securitizing domestic and foreign policy practices of the Turkish statecraft as well as the constitutional amendments granting considerable executive and legislative powers to the presidency created a hybrid regime in terms of the comingling of emergency powers and the seemingly continuing rule of law and its institutions. This paper also aims to further advance the scholarly debate on the relationship between securitization and emergency by problematising the dualistic nature of the Copenhagen School relying on a binary opposition established between the normal politics of desecuritization and the exceptional politics of securitization.