Revisiting National Security Discourse in Turkey with a view to Pacification: From Military Power to Police Power onto Orchestration of Labour Power

• Main Author: Gülden Özcan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hacettepe University 2014-06-01
• Series: Momentdergi
• Subjects: gezi direnişi; militarizasyon; ulusal güvenlik; neoliberalizm; pasivizasyon; polis.
• Online Access: http://www.momentdergi.org/index.php/momentdergi/article/view/36

<p>In this article, I try to analyse the neoliberal re-structuration in Turkey with a view to fabrication of official national security discourse and its adaption as common sense among productive classes. Acknowledging pacification as a counter-hegemonic approach to securitization, I offer an alternative framework to study the role of national security in Turkish politics that goes beyond rather traditionalized civil-military dichotomy. I argue that national security is a technique aiming at pacification with both imperial and local targets and that it should be understood with recourse to the neoliberalism-security-pacification axis. The article composes of three sections. First, I explore the history of the term pacification. Second, I look at the discursive continuities on national security between the military regime and the civilian AKP governments. Third, I reflect on the alternative forms of solidarity emerged during the Gezi Resistance that open the possibility of creating a counter-hegemonic common sense.</p>