Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T06:02:55.433Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - The People and Its Embodiment: Authoritarian Foundations of Constitutions in Turkey

from Part II - Contextualizing Constitution Making in Turkey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2019

Felix Petersen
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Zeynep Yanaşmayan
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut for Social Anthropology
Get access

Summary

This chapter examines the constitution-making processes in the history of the Turkish Republic to provide an alternative explanation for the authoritarian foundations of Turkish constitutions different from the established explanations based on the center-periphery dichotomy or military tutelage argument. Drawing on Claude Lefort’s theory of modern democracy, the chapter argues that the dominant constitution-making practice in Turkey has been the hegemonic-totalitarian logic, which causes the performative closing of the empty place of power by one actor that claims to exclusively represent the people’s will. This embodiment claim constitutes the authoritarian foundation of Turkish constitutions. These embodiment claims were made by the Republican Peopleʼs Party for the 1924 Constitution, by the military following a coup for the 1961 and 1982 Constitutions, and by the Justice and Development Party as a populist actor holding the parliamentary majority in the 2007, 2010, and 2017 amendment processes. The Constitutional Conciliation Commission ‘Anayasa Uzlaşma Komisyonu, AUK’ could have achieved a democratic departure from the path-dependent authoritarian constitution-making approach.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Failure of Popular Constitution Making in Turkey
Regressing Towards Constitutional Autocracy
, pp. 59 - 83
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×