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The Hegemonic Preservation Thesis Revisited: The Example of Turkey

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Abstract

This paper offers a critical rereading of the history of judicial review of constitutional amendments in Turkey. We argue that, contrary to appearances, the claim to a power of amendment review on the part of the Turkish Constitutional Court does not fit Ran Hirschl’s model of hegemonic preservation, which aims to explain the genesis of strong constitutionalism and judicial review as the result of an anti-democratic elite consensus that tries to leverage the prestige of judicial institutions. Attempts to impose Hirschl’s model on the constitutional history of the Turkish Republic have been very popular in the jurisprudential literature on Turkey, but the model offers a misleading and incomplete diagnosis of what ails Turkish constitutionalism. It is not the supposed excessive strength of formal constitutionalism and judicial review in Turkey, but rather the normative weakness of the Turkish Constitution of 1982, that is responsible, at least in part, for Turkey’s repeated constitutional crises. We therefore suggest an alternative template for understanding Turkish constitutional history—the theory of sovereignty as the power to decide on the exception put forward by Carl Schmitt.

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Notes

  1. Bülent Arınç, “Dindar bir cumhurbaşkanı seçeceğiz” (We will elect a religious president), Milliyet, April 16, 2017.

  2. “Yargıtay Cumhuriyet Başsavcısı Yalçınkaya’dan türbana izin uyarısı” (Chief Public Prosecutor Yalçınkaya’s türban warning), Milliyet, January 17, 2008.

  3. “Danıştay da türban konusunda uyardı: Toplumsal barışı zedeler” (The Council of State warned as well regarding the türban issue: It harms the societal peace), Milliyet, January 18, 2008; “Yargıtaydan türban eleştirisi” (The Supreme Court of Appeals’ türban criticism), February 4, 2008.

  4. “Erdoğan urges change in charter due to de facto change in president’s new role”, Hürriyet Daily News, August 14, 2015.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Simon Wigley’s support in preparing this paper. We are also very grateful for the extremely helpful comments provided by the two anonymous reviewers for HJRL. Our research for this article was financially supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK), under project number 113K189.

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  1. Department of Political Science, Bilkent University, 06800, Ankara, Turkey

    Gülşen Seven

  2. Department of Philosophy, Bilkent University, 06800, Ankara, Turkey

    Lars Vinx

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  1. Gülşen Seven
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Seven, G., Vinx, L. The Hegemonic Preservation Thesis Revisited: The Example of Turkey. Hague J Rule Law 9, 45–82 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40803-016-0044-8

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