2023/09/02 by Yücel Yanıkdağ · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Turkey's Politics and Society #Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics #Historical Turkish Studies
paper · doi:10.1080/19475020.2024.2371871
openalex publication_date 2023/09/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/14
When the Ottoman Empire declared armed neutrality in August 1914, parts of its territory had already been under siege since April 1909. Wartime mobilisation extended the emergency measures geographically. Except for a brief period of ‘normality’ in 1912, the imperial and republican states declared one state of siege after another from 1909 to 1927 (and well beyond). Although the nature of the state, its name, and its capital changed, the use of extraordinary powers remained a near constant. That is, the exception became the norm. Even if the specific justifications for each declaration of a state of siege varied slightly over time, the justification remained the same: to safeguard the state and, later, the nation, against threats to its very existence. Internal enemies were feared the most, although the actions of external enemies were occasionally invoked, both directly and indirectly, as a reason for maintaining extraordinary powers. Frequently, the internal enemy took the form of a non-Muslim and/or non-Turkish ‘other’: Ottoman Greeks, Ottoman Armenians, and Ottoman and Turkish Republican Kurds. Occasionally, of course, Muslims and Turks could also become ‘the enemy’, but mostly as ‘suspect’ individuals or small groups, never as collectivities.