![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
Borrowing the Copenhagen school’s lexicon of desecuritization, the present paper appraises the EU’s role as a desecuritizing agent for Turkey, with a particular focus on security speech-acts about ‘Kurdish separatism’ and ‘political Islam’. Taking up the illustrative cases of silencing the military and abandoning limits to freedom of speech reflected in EU-Turkey accession documents, this paper observes the ways in which the EU membership conditionality has been an important catalyst for Turkey’s desecuritizations; yet argues that the EU’s impact is limited due to the necessities of the interplay between various desecuritization agents/processes as well as the existence of EU conditionality efficacy factors.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2012 ISA Annual Convention in San Diego, CA. I would like to thank the panel participants as well as Mustafa Aydin, Dimitrios Triantaphyllou, Gencer Ozcan, Serhat Guvenc and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions.
Notes
1. For Smith (Citation2003, 108), ‘conditionality entails the linking, by a state or international organization, of benefits desired by another state to the fulfillment of certain conditions’.
2. See Verney and Ifantis (Citation2009) for a whole volume on Turkey’s change in different regards as the result of EU membership prospects.
3. Emphasis as in the original. For a similar argument see Karakaya-Polat (2009, 134) and Cebeci (2007).
4. For the four-pathway model used to analyze the EU’s role in the resolution of border conflicts see Diez, Stettner, and Albert (Citation2006, 563–93).
5. For the democratic reforms see Political Reforms in Turkey (Citation2007) and Acikmese (2010).
6. Even though Wæver admits that the ‘original version of the speech act theory was formulated in 1988 without any direct inspiration’, but ‘notic[ed] naturally the similarities’ after reading Carl Schmitt’s works (http://cast.ku.dk/people/researchers/ow/Ole_W_ver_10_books_-_reposted.pdf/); the correlation between Schmittian theory of the political and the securitization theory has been extensively studied in secondary literature (see for e.g. Huysmans Citation1998; Williams Citation2003; Behnke Citation2006). These intensive discussions on the influence from Carl Schmitt in the Copenhagen School finally has led Wæver to claim directly that the theory has ‘Schmittian effects nevertheless’ (2011, 470).
7. Wæver (2011, 468) is also in support of the view that the ‘concept of politics’ entailed in the securitization theory has been inspired by the works of Hannah Arendt (Citation1958, Citation1968). For examples from the literature on the Arendtian impact on the securitization theory see Jutila (Citation2006, 172–3) and Floyd (2010, 26–7).
8. Emphasis added.
9. For a timeline (1800–1923; 1923–1945; 1945–1989 and from 1989 onwards) of these security concerns, see Kazan (Citation2003, 448).
10. Interview by Mr Ahmet Davutoğlu published in AUC Cairo Review (Egypt) on 12 March 2012, http://www.mfa.gov.tr/interview-by-mr_-ahmet-davuto%C4%9Flu-published-in-auc-cairo-review-_egypt_-on-12-march-2012.en.mfa.
11. Decision Number 406 of National Security Council.
12. Articles 2, 4 of Law No 2945. Emphasis is mine.
14. Cited in the Article titled Turkey and the US in 1997: Different Voices, Same Chord, Hurriyet Daily News, January 18, 1998.
15. For the Luxembourg Presidency Conclusions of 12–13 December 1997, see, http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/ec/032a0008.htm.
16. Cited in the Article titled Yılmaz Ulusal Güvenliği Tartışmaya Açtı [Yılmaz Opened Up the Debate on National Security], available at http://arsiv.ntvmsnbc.com/news/98251.asp.
17. Emphasis is mine.
18. Article 32 of Law No 4709 of 3 October 2001 amending the Constitution. According to this amendment and Law No 2945 (as amended on 15 January 2003), the National Security Council is composed of the Prime Minister, Chief of General Staff, Deputy Prime Ministers, Ministers of Justice, National Defense, Internal Affairs and Foreign Affairs, Commanders of the Army, Navy and Air Forces and General Commander of the Gendarmerie, under the chairmanship of the President of the Republic. The addition of Deputy Prime Ministers and the Minister of Justice to this composition through the above-mentioned amendments was a maneuver to outweigh the power of the military membership in the Council.
19. Emphasis is mine.
20. Cited in Article titled Erdogan: Turkey should get rid of Article 312, Hurriyet Daily News, August 22, 2000. Article 312/2 of Law No 765 reads as follows: ‘Anyone who openly incites the public hatred and enmity with regard to class, race, religion, religious sect or regional differences shall be punished by between one and three years of imprisonment’. Article 312 has been replaced with Article 216 with the new Turkish Penal Code (Law no 5237 of 26 September 2004).
21. According to Article 159 of Law No 765 those who publicly insult or deride Turkishness, the Republic, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, the moral character of the Government, the Ministries, the military and security forces of the State or the moral character of the judicial bodies of the State, shall be sentenced between one and six years of severe imprisonment. For interpretations and changes on Article 159 and Article 301, see Algan (Citation2008).
22. Some changes include the reduction in prison sentences, abolishing fines for criticisms in cases applicable to Article 159 and the addition of the notion of incitement in a way that may be dangerous for public order was added as an element of the offence stipulated in Article 312.
23. Reform package paves way to relieve judiciary’s burden, Hurriyet Daily News, August 3, 2012.
24. Emphasis as in the original.