By Sefa Yürükel
In democratic regimes, security policies are the most barefaced exposure of a government’s character. Every security measure taken documents how the state views its citizens, where it seeks legitimacy, and how it transforms public authority into an instrument of domination. Today, in Ankara, the preparations for the NATO Summit to be held in the coming days paint a dark portrait of this character. What is taking place is not a security operation but the declaration of a martial law regime in which the constitutional order has been suspended and all fundamental rights and freedoms have been vaporised under the pretext of security.
In this process, the denial of press accreditation, the wholesale ban on demonstrations and marches for 13 days, and the obstruction of even press statements, the most basic form of democratic expression, are not ordinary security measures but a direct constitutional violation and a coup against democracy. The government has turned the obligation of hosting an international alliance into an opportunity to usurp its own citizens’ rights.
Securitisation Theory: Not Terror, But an Instrument of Domination
In international relations literature, securitisation is the process of presenting normal political issues as existential threats and thereby legitimising extraordinary measures. This concept, developed by the Copenhagen School, has found concrete embodiment in Ankara. By using the discourse of “NATO Summit security,” the government has completely disabled the normal democratic process. Here, security has ceased to be a public value to be protected; it has become an instrument of domination used by the political power to suspend the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
By hiding behind the lie of “there is a threat,” imposing a 13 day ban on action and transforming the city into an open air prison, the government has committed the most brazen and anti-democratic application of securitisation. This is not the normalisation of an exceptional measure; it is a direct attempt to make a state of exception permanent.
Transfer of Sovereignty: Not the Citizen, But the International Alliance
Sovereignty belongs unconditionally to the nation. This constitutional principle has been trampled underfoot on the streets of Ankara. The very reason for the state’s existence is, first and foremost, to protect the safety of life and property, and the rights and freedoms of its own citizens. However, the picture that has emerged ahead of the NATO Summit reveals the government’s priorities with terrifying clarity: this state does not prioritise its citizens’ freedom, but rather the comfort and security perception of international actors.
Paralysing a city for 13 days, nullifying the press’s right to information, and abolishing the freedoms of assembly and expression… These practices are a clear answer to the question of whom sovereignty belongs to: NATO. The government has once again documented that it follows the demands and expectations of Brussels, not of its own citizens. This is not a security weakness; it is a sovereignty suicide.
“More NATOist than NATO”: The New Cloak of Authoritarianism
The criticism of being “more NATOist than NATO” is no longer just a foreign policy metaphor; it has become a reality describing the authoritarianisation of the domestic political order. Using the requirements of international alliances as a pretext, the government is imposing restrictions it could never get society to accept in normal times. The denial of press accreditation is a confession of the effort to prevent society from being informed about what is happening. The 13 day ban on assemblies and demonstrations, declared under the guise of the summit, is a coup against dissident voices dressed in legal garb, designed to suffocate them completely.
The government uses NATO’s security protocols as a shield for its own authoritarian agenda. This is the relegation of its own citizens, who cannot exercise their right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression in their own country, to a position less valuable than that of foreign statesmen. The issue is no longer opposition to NATO but the exposure of the domestic martial law regime that the government is constructing on this pretext.
Open Air Prison: The City Where the Constitution Was Torn Apart
In democratic societies, the public sphere is the place where freedom breathes. In Ankara, this sphere has been strangled under the guise of the NATO Summit. To close a city to assemblies and marches for 13 days, even to ban a press statement, is to turn that city into an “open air prison.” This analogy is no exaggeration; it is the most precise definition of the lived reality.
Article 34 of the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey guarantees the “Right to Organise Meetings and Demonstration Marches,” Article 26 guarantees “Freedom of Expression and Dissemination of Thought,” and Article 28 guarantees “Freedom of the Press.” These articles have been, in the strictest sense of the word, nullified in Ankara today. An administrative decision that may be legally possible is an absolute zero in terms of democratic legitimacy. The wholesale suspension of rights guaranteed by the Constitution through a governor’s decree is a flagrant violation of the constitutional order, and this situation is unacceptable.
Conclusion: A Crisis of Legitimacy and the Right to Resist
The preparation for a NATO Summit in Ankara has become living proof of how a democracy is being driven towards an authoritarian collapse. What has happened is not the disruption of the balance between security and freedom, but the wholesale sacrifice of freedom to the fetishism of security. The government, by seizing upon an international summit as an opportunity, has declared a martial law regime against its own citizens; it has suspended the constitution, press freedom, and the right to assembly.
The success of democratic governments is measured not by their ability to ensure the security of external actors, but by their capacity to protect the freedom of their own citizens without conceding a shred of it while doing so. In Turkey today, the government has shattered this measure; while attempting to derive its legitimacy from international alliances, it has unilaterally terminated its social contract with its citizens. This is not merely a problem of security policy; it is the gravest crisis of the constitutional order and democratic legitimacy. And to remain silent in the face of this usurpation is a betrayal of democracy.
Bibliography
Agamben, Giorgio. (2005). State of Exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Buzan, Barry, Wæver, Ole & de Wilde, Jaap. (1998). Security: A New Framework for Analysis. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Dahl, Robert A. (1989). Democracy and Its Critics. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Habermas, Jürgen. (1989). The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Locke, John. (1689/1988). Two Treatises of Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mill, John Stuart. (1859/2003). On Liberty. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Rawls, John. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Constitution of the Republic of Turkey (1982). Article 13 (Limitation of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms and the Principle of Proportionality), Article 26 (Freedom of Expression and Dissemination of Thought), Article 28 (Freedom of the Press), Article 34 (Right to Organise Meetings and Demonstration Marches).
Sefa Yürükel
Danish ethnographer and social anthropologist (MA)
Aarhus University, 1997
Independent Researcher
Fields of Research: International Politics, Public International Law, Geopolitics, Sociology, Psychology, Cultural Studies, Systems and Structures.
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