Repression without exception: A study of protest bans during Turkey’s state of emergency (2016-2018)

Abstract

Following the coup attempt of 15 July 2016, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency that would last for two years. In this paper, we focus on an understudied aspect of this period, protest repression during the state of emergency, using an original dataset of protest bans issued in 2007-2019. Engaging with the theoretical claims of emergency scholarship, our paper demonstrates that emergency powers were used to target areas, groups, and issues that were not related to the 'urgency' underpinning emergency rule. Moreover, such derogations of rights were perpetuated after the termination of the state of emergency within so-called ordinary legality. These practices were nevertheless embedded in the already authoritarian political-institutional context of Turkey and its layered history of emergencies.