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ABSTRACT
Much was said on Turkey's modes of governance, especially during the ever-changing policies and discourses promoted by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Nevertheless, the post-2016 rhetoric promulgated primarily by Erdoğan, which saw securitisation as the hub of the discourse, still has not functioned as a point of scholarly analysis. Filling that gap, we propose to look at Turkey's recent securitisation narrative and the insistence on the change to a presidential system through the lens of the Copenhagen School's thought, as well as the work of Carl Schmitt. As the Copenhagen School defines 'security' in broad terms such as 'survival', it is not a huge step to make the connection between this theoretical position and Erdoğan's hyperbolised security rhetoric. Similarly, Schmitt's concept of sovereignty, and his insistence that the sovereign cannot be constrained by standard norms and regulations, serve well to explain Erdoğan's insistence on attaining more political power. The article shows a change in politcy towards increased securitisation.
Key words: Carl Schmitt, the Copenhagen school, Turkey, presidential system, securitisation
Introduction
The violent and futile coup attempt in 2016 brought about significant changes for Turkey, and potentially even opened a 'Pandora's box' of sorts, allowing for a more intense 'securitisation' approach by the state elites. Some of those changes were best seen through the successful attempts to amend the constitution and increase the president's role and power. The main pretext for such a bold move by the initiatives' main proponent, president Erdoğan, occurred in the security context under the 'real and present danger'. Even Erdoğan himself proclaimed that the main goals of the new system were security and stability (Sabah, 2017), as 'the notion of national security as understood and interpreted in a traditional context continues to be a central variable in Turkish policy-making' (Drorian, 2005). While the issue of the new presidential system, along with constitutional amendments, was a point of controversy for many critics, others supported it wholeheartedly. The presidential system proposed, among other points, to extend the duration of the presidency, virtually abolish the post of prime minister (while at the same time allowing the president to maintain his membership in the political party), to make impeachment almost impossible, to allow the president greater control over the Parliament (which could also be dissolved...