Democratization and National Sensibilities: Framing Counter-terrorism in the Turkish Legislative Process

Abstract

Chapter 6 provides an overview of the main findings for the Turkish Grand National Assembly debates during three key legislative periods, the EU-harmonization packages of 2002–2004, the reverse amendments to the counter-terrorism law in 2006, and finally the judicial reform packages during the 2012–2013 period as a response to ECtHR rulings. Parallel to the previous chapter, the analysis unpacks discursive units that constitute the structure of both the security frame and the rights frame. The Turkish parliamentary debates are marked by the predominance of the security narrative, owing to the political culture and history. The security discourse is imbued in pervasive nationalist undertones emphasizing the material and ideological basis of the state as the main object of security, placed before rights and freedoms. This security frame is challenged by the growing salience of a rights language finding momentum with the EU-accession process. A rights-based orientation started to establish itself in the Turkish political scene, putting freedoms and individuals’ entitlements before an étatist understanding. The rights frame has worked to point out how security interests have been utilized in order to silence oppositional voices deemed as the ‘existential other’. Interestingly, similar to the UK context, at certain instances these two frames borrow from each other’s symbolic repertoire to enhance their arguments.

Try to eschew defining terror. Every definition is a limitation. Limitations bring about inadequacies.

Orhan Eraslan, 29 June 2006

TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, 29 June 2006, Cilt: 126, 122. Birlesim, p. 32.

TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, 29 June 2006, Cilt: 126, 122. Birlesim, p. 32.