Authoritarian constitutionalism and legal autocratization

Recent scholarship on democratic backsliding increasingly emphasizes the role of constitutional and legal mechanisms in authoritarian consolidation. Rather than dismantling constitutional frameworks outright, contemporary authoritarian leaders frequently reshape them through legal reforms, constitutional amendments and emergency powers. A growing body of research highlights how constitutional forms can be used to entrench authoritarian rule while preserving the appearance of legality (Dixon and Landau Reference Dixon and Landau2021). This phenomenon has been conceptualized through concepts such as abusive constitutionalism, autocratic legalism and stealth authoritarianism, which capture the ways in which elected governments manipulate legal and constitutional procedures to weaken institutional checks on executive authority (Landau Reference Landau2013; Varol Reference Varol2015; Scheppele Reference Scheppele2018). Rather than suspending constitutional rule entirely, these strategies rely on the strategic use of constitutional amendments, judicial restructuring and emergency powers to gradually transform democratic institutions from within (Bermeo Reference Bermeo2016; Levitsky and Ziblatt Reference Levitsky and Ziblatt2018; Dixon and Landau Reference Dixon and Landau2021).

Within this broader debate, scholars have increasingly examined how such processes unfold in specific national contexts. In the Turkish case, a growing body of legal and constitutional scholarship has explored how institutional reforms, emergency powers and constitutional amendments have facilitated the concentration of executive authority and the erosion of democratic safeguards (Yılmaz Reference Yılmaz2019; Kadıoğlu Reference Kadıoğlu2021; Gümrükçü Reference Gümrükçü2024).

Several studies emphasize how constitutional reforms and legal restructuring have enabled the consolidation of executive power during the rule of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP). Kadıoğlu (Reference Kadıoğlu2021), for example, characterizes recent institutional developments as a form of autocratic legalism, in which legal and constitutional reforms are mobilized to strengthen executive authority while maintaining the formal framework of constitutional governance. Similarly, Gümrükçü (Reference Gümrükçü2024) shows how repeated constitutional amendments have contributed to rule-of-law backsliding by weakening judicial independence, diminishing legislative oversight and restructuring institutional checks on executive power. These analyses demonstrate that the transformation of the Turkish political system has occurred not only through political competition but also through the strategic deployment of legal and constitutional mechanisms.

A related strand of scholarship focuses specifically on the role of emergency powers and exceptional legality in shaping Turkey’s constitutional order. Yılmaz (Reference Yılmaz2019) argues that the Turkish political system has historically relied on legal emergency powers as a recurring instrument of governance, blurring the distinction between ordinary constitutional rule and exceptional authority. Rather than functioning as temporary measures, emergency provisions have frequently been integrated into the normal functioning of the political system, enabling the expansion of executive prerogative and the suspension of constitutional constraints. In a similar vein, Göztepe (Reference Göztepe2018) examines how the normalization of emergency governance has gradually embedded exceptional powers within the legal order, thereby transforming the constitutional framework itself. Further analyses of the post-2016 emergency regime show how emergency decrees and legal reforms have been used to restructure state institutions and consolidate presidential authority (Göztepe Reference Göztepe2021). Recent empirical research similarly demonstrates how presidential decree powers have been employed to reorganize bureaucratic hierarchies, transform institutional structures and expand presidential control across multiple sectors of the state (Salmanoğ Reference Salmanoğ2026).

Beyond the contemporary period, several scholars emphasize the deeper constitutional and political foundations of authoritarian legality in Turkey. Tombuş (Reference Tombuş, Petersen and Yanaşmayan2020) highlights how constitution-making processes in Turkey have repeatedly been shaped by claims to embody the will of ‘the people’, thereby producing constitutional frameworks with authoritarian foundations. Similarly, Boyunsuz (Reference Boyunsuz, Petersen and Yanaşmayan2020) analyzes the cyclical relationship between regime transformation and constitution-making in Turkish political history, demonstrating how constitutional reforms have repeatedly accompanied broader shifts in political authority. These analyses are complemented by theoretical reflections on sovereignty and constitutional authority. For instance, Ehs, Göztepe and Lemke (Reference Ehs, Göztepe and Lemke2023) comparatively engage with the concept of sovereignty and the temporal dimension of political power, emphasizing how control over constitutional time and exceptional decision-making during the pandemic can become central to the exercise of sovereign authority.

A smaller but growing body of scholarship has explicitly drawn on Carl Schmitt to analyze Turkey. Kutay (Reference Kutay2019) interprets Turkish politics through Schmitt’s twofold sovereign decision – first redefining the Republic’s secular order as an aberrant ‘exception’ and later institutionalizing a plebiscitarian regime of rule by decree in which Erdoğan claims the authority to determine the new normalcy. Jovanović and Ðidić (Reference Jovanović and Ðidić2018) combine Schmittian sovereignty with securitization theory to explain the presidential shift as a response to existential crisis, while Parslow (Reference Parslow2016) traces the historical embedding of exceptional executive powers in Turkey between 1933 and 1945, resonating with Schmitt’s claim that the exception can become institutionalized. These contributions demonstrate the conceptual potential of Schmitt for understanding Turkey, yet they remain either discursively focused, security-oriented or limited to isolated historical moments, and none of these frameworks can fully account for how sovereignty itself has been repeatedly reconstituted through states of exception.

While this literature provides important insights into the legal mechanisms of constitutional transformation, it only partially overlaps with another influential body of scholarship that seeks to explain Turkey’s trajectory through broader regime-centered frameworks. Studies of democratic backsliding and autocratization have interpreted Turkey’s transformation primarily through concepts such as populism, competitive authoritarianism, neopatrimonialism and authoritarian neoliberalism. These approaches illuminate important political, institutional and socio-economic dynamics, yet they typically address regime change in terms of institutional erosion or authoritarian consolidation rather than as moments of constitutional rupture. The following section, therefore, examines these regime-centered explanations and demonstrates their analytical limits in capturing how sovereignty itself has been repeatedly reconstituted through states of exception.

Regime-centered explanations

Alongside the growing literature on authoritarian constitutionalism and legal autocratization, Turkey has also been widely discussed in the comparative politics literature as a paradigmatic case of the ‘third wave of autocratization’ (Lührmann and Lindberg Reference Lührmann and Lindberg2019), experiencing one of the steepest democratic declines between 2012 and 2022 (Papada et al Reference Papada2023; Nord et al Reference Nord2024). Scholarly debates have sought to explain this trajectory through diverse conceptual frameworks. The democratic backsliding literature interprets Turkey as a case of incremental institutional erosion, highlighting executive aggrandizement, weakening of the judiciary and the hollowing out of democratic norms (Somer Reference Somer2016; Ginsburg and Huq Reference Ginsburg and Huq2018; Levitsky and Ziblatt Reference Levitsky and Ziblatt2018). To elaborate Turkey’s democratic backsliding, four dominant approaches are typically employed: populism, competitive authoritarianism, neopatrimonialism and authoritarian neoliberalism.

Populism, defined as a ‘thin-centered ideology’ that opposes a virtuous people to a corrupt elite (Mudde and Kaltwasser Reference Mudde and Kaltwasser2017), has been widely used to explain how dissent is delegitimized and institutional restructuring morally justified. Studies show how Erdoğan portrays himself as the embodiment of the national will while casting opposition actors as illegitimate (Dinçşahin Reference Dinçşahin2012; Aytaç and Elçi Reference Aytaç, Elçi and Stockemer2019; Elçi Reference Elçi2019), thereby facilitating authoritarian consolidation (Castaldo Reference Castaldo2018; Taşkın Reference Taşkın and Tezcür2020). Yet, while populism illuminates discursive legitimation, it does not explain how these narratives translate into constitutional rupture and the reconstitution of sovereignty.

The competitive authoritarianism framework offers a second influential lens. Here, formal democratic institutions remain in place but are systematically skewed in favor of incumbents (Levitsky and Way Reference Levitsky and Way2002). Although the framework’s applicability to Turkey has been debated (Arslantaş and Kaiser Reference Arslantaş and Kaiser2023), many scholars argue that Turkey transitioned into this model during the 2010s (Esen and Gumuscu Reference Esen and Gumuscu2016), highlighting growing electoral asymmetries, declining judicial independence and erosion of democratic norms (Özbudun Reference Özbudun2015; Somer Reference Somer2016). However, this perspective captures continuity in authoritarian practices more than the transformative breaks – such as the 2017 amendments – that fundamentally redefined sovereignty.

A third approach, neopatrimonialism, interprets Turkish politics as the personalization of authority within ostensibly legal institutions (Eisenstadt Reference Eisenstadt1973; Erdmann and Engel Reference Erdmann and Engel2006). Under the AKP, the fusion of party and state replaced meritocracy with loyalty, and state resources were systematically mobilized for partisan ends (Cengiz Reference Cengiz2020; Bektas Reference Bektas2025) and shaped society with gender and family policies (Coşar and Yeğenoğlu Reference Coşar and Yeğenoğlu2011; Ugur-Cinar Reference Ugur-Cinar2017). Kalaycıoğlu (Reference Kalaycıoğlu2023) goes further, describing the 2017 amendments as producing a form of neopatrimonial sultanism. This perspective highlights informality, clientelism and mechanisms of legitimation but tends to understate the constitutional-legal processes and exceptional moments that formally remade the political order and institutions.

Finally, political economy perspectives stress how neoliberal restructuring and successive crises underpinned authoritarian consolidation. Tansel (Reference Tansel2018) adapts the notion of authoritarian neoliberalism, while Akcay (Reference Akcay2018) and Altınörs and Akçay (Reference Altınörs and Akçay2022) argue that economic crises enabled the regime to reconfigure state–society relations around capital accumulation and patronage. Tuğal (Reference Tuğal2022) analyzes neoliberal populism as a blend of market discipline and state-led mobilization, while Özdemir (Reference Özdemir2020) emphasizes the contradictions of AKP social policies, and Bekmen (Reference Bekmen2023) theorizes the ‘parcelled state’. These accounts illuminate the material foundations of authoritarianism, yet they rarely engage sovereignty as a constitutional question.

While these four frameworks have illuminated important dimensions of Turkey’s authoritarian trajectory, they primarily address regime classification, institutional erosion, or political economy. What tends to be underexplored is the role of exceptional powers – especially states of emergency – and the constitutional ruptures, as the sites where sovereignty is both revealed and reconstituted repeatedly.

Taken together, these strands of scholarship illuminate important dimensions of Turkey’s authoritarian transformation, yet they leave a key question insufficiently explored: how sovereign authority itself is reconstituted through moments of constitutional rupture and exceptional rule. While legal-constitutional analyses emphasize mechanisms of legal autocratization and regime-centered accounts highlight institutional erosion, populist legitimation, or political-economic restructuring, neither perspective systematically examines how states of emergency function as foundational moments in which the locus of sovereignty is redefined. This article addresses this gap by developing a constitutional-historical perspective centered on the role of states of emergency in Turkey’s constitutional trajectory. Drawing on Carl Schmitt’s concepts of sovereignty, exception and dictatorship, it analyzes successive episodes of constitutional rupture – from the late Ottoman period to the post-2016 presidential system – to trace how sovereign authority has been constituted, transferred and transformed across different institutional configurations.

By situating contemporary developments within this longer historical trajectory, the article contributes to both the literature on authoritarian constitutionalism and the broader debates on regime transformation in Turkey. It demonstrates how exceptional powers have functioned not merely as instruments of crisis management but as mechanisms of constitutional refoundation. In doing so, it bridges constitutional and regime-centered approaches by showing how moments of exception serve as critical junctures through which sovereignty is reconstituted, culminating in the post-2016 transformation of Turkey’s political system.

Schmitt’s core concepts

Carl Schmitt radicalized Jean Bodin’s early modern conception of sovereignty as absolute and perpetual power by grounding it not in the permanence of law but in the decisive act that defines the exception, thereby connecting sovereignty and dictatorship to the existential foundation of political order. In doing so, he positioned himself against liberalism and parliamentary democracy, which he saw as incapable of decisive action in moments of existential crisis. His famous dictum, ‘Sovereign is he who decides on the exception’ (Schmitt Reference Schmitt and Schwab2005: 5), encapsulates his conception of sovereignty as the authority to act outside the legal order. For Schmitt, sovereignty is not reducible to legal norms or institutional functions; rather, it is the capacity for decisive action when the legal order can no longer provide guidance. All political orders, he argues, presuppose the possibility of a crisis in which rules must be suspended. In this sense, the exception is neither chaos nor anarchy but a political act of re-ordering, undertaken by the sovereign outside the law (Hirst Reference Hirst and Mouffe1999: 11–12). Cristi (Reference Cristi1998: 185–86) emphasizes that sovereignty thus appears as constituent power: the authority to establish or re-establish order when norms fail. Böckenförde (Reference Böckenförde and Dyzenhaus1998: 42) underscores that the exception is not a marginal anomaly but the very foundation of Schmitt’s constitutional theory, since the validity of the legal order ultimately rests on a decision that cannot be derived from the norms themselves. Seitzer (Reference Seitzer and Dyzenhaus1998: 292) likewise shows that Schmitt grounds legitimacy in founding moments of rupture: by defining continuity and discontinuity, the sovereign decision turns legal theory into political action.

Ordinary legal systems presuppose stable conditions – predictable rules, regular procedures and calculable outcomes. But when normality collapses through war, insurrection, or crisis, law itself cannot determine how to act. Any attempt to regulate emergencies already presupposes a prior authority capable of declaring the exception. For Schmitt, this authority rests with the sovereign: the actor who both identifies the situation as exceptional and determines the measures required to address it (Schmitt Reference Schmitt and Schwab2005: 6). Kalyvas (Reference Kalyvas2008: 118–20) emphasizes that the exception is both destructive and constructive because it suspends or abolishes the old legal order, but at the same time, it is constitutive in that it allows the constitutive power to reemerge and establish the order. In other words, it embodies the essence of both conservative and revolutionary politics in itself.

Schmitt’s account of sovereignty is inseparable from his broader understanding of the political. In The Concept of the Political, he argues that ‘the specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy’ (Schmitt Reference Schmitt, Strong and Strauss2007: 26). Unlike moral or economic differences, this distinction is existential. It identifies those whose very presence threatens the survival of the political community. ‘The high points of politics are simultaneously the moments in which the enemy is, in concrete clarity, recognized as the enemy’ (Schmitt Reference Schmitt, Strong and Strauss2007: 67). The political, therefore, is defined by the intensity of this antagonism, culminating in the possibility of physical conflict (Frye Reference Frye1966: 819). The sovereign decision on the exception is thus simultaneously a decision about enmity, since defining an exceptional situation requires identifying who constitutes the enemy. As Neocleous (Reference Neocleous1996: 14) points out, Schmitt’s theory does not treat the friend–enemy distinction as metaphorical but as the concrete foundation of political unity; by determining who is included and excluded, the sovereign creates the boundaries of the polity itself. In this way, sovereignty not only suspends law in moments of crisis but also gives political community its existential coherence. In this sense, the exception always appears as an existential threat, perceived through the friend–enemy distinction. The sovereign decision in such moments cannot be reduced to predetermined laws or abstract norms; it requires an authority capable of defining both the crisis and its source. Sovereignty is, therefore, claimed not only in deciding that an exception exists but also in determining who constitutes the enemy responsible for it.

Schmitt’s reflections on dictatorship actually preceded his generalization of sovereignty through the concept of the exception. In Die Diktatur (1921), written amid the crisis of the Weimar Republic, he defined dictatorship as ‘the exercise of state power freed from legal restrictions for the purpose of resolving an abnormal situation’ (Schmitt Reference Schmitt, Hoelzl and Ward.2013: xxii). Schmitt (Reference Schmitt, Hoelzl and Ward.2013: 118) likens dictatorship to self-defense, framing it as a reactive instrument that arises when ordinary law proves inadequate rather than as arbitrary despotism. Moreover, the dictatorship is neither a regular office nor munus perpetuum (permanent office) (Schmitt Reference Schmitt, Hoelzl and Ward.2013: 31). Dictatorship implies the creation of a desired situation, whereby legal limits that obstruct this goal are practically set aside (Schmitt Reference Schmitt, Hoelzl and Ward.2013: 117). Its goal is functional: to preserve or remake the political order in the face of crisis.

Within this framework, Schmitt distinguished two forms of dictatorship – commissary and sovereign. ‘The omnipotence of the dictator rests on his being empowered by an existing organ with constitutional authority. This is the concept of the commissary dictatorship’ (Schmitt Reference Schmitt, Hoelzl and Ward.2013: 112). In other words, deriving its power from the existing order, commissary dictatorship suspends the constitution to defend it. Drawing on the Roman precedent, where temporary dictators were appointed in wartime, this model is conservative by nature. The dictator acts in the name of an existing constitutional order, employs extraordinary means to eliminate a crisis and withdraws once normality is restored. The Roman model entrusted temporary power to a virtuous individual, while the neo-Roman model – embedded in modern constitutions such as Weimar 1919 and France 1958 – assigns emergency powers to elected leaders who derive legitimacy from a popular mandate (Ferejohn and Pasquino Reference Ferejohn and Pasquino2004: 213).

By contrast, sovereign dictatorship transcends the existing constitution altogether. According to Schmitt (Reference Schmitt, Hoelzl and Ward.2013: 119):

Here, Schmitt makes clear that sovereign dictatorship does not operate within the framework of an existing constitution but seeks to bring about the conditions for a new one. Sovereignty, in this sense, is not derivative of prior legal norms but rests on the power to decide when a new constitutional order must be constituted. This is where Schmitt separates sovereignty (the power to decide on suspension of existing norms) from constituent power (the authority to establish a constitution once such a decision has cleared the ground). Colón-Ríos (Reference Colón-Ríos2011: 367) observes that this distinction can be read to mean that a body tasked with drafting a constitution functions as a ‘sovereign dictator’, temporarily exercising constituent power until a new constitutional order is in place. Yet, unlike Colón-Ríos’ suggestion that such authority is exercised on behalf of a ‘true sovereign’, Schmitt himself never grounded sovereignty in an external source such as the people; rather, sovereignty resided in the act of decision itself. Cristi (Reference Cristi1998: 191) emphasizes that Schmitt’s later concession to democracy in Verfassungslehre (1928) should not be seen as a democratic turn. Instead, Schmitt sought to contain the radical potential of popular constituent power by offsetting it with the liberal rule of law. In Cristi’s reading, Schmitt’s theory operates as a balancing act in which democratic appeals to constituent power are neutralized through legal form, revealing his attempt to disarm democratic revolution rather than empower it.

All these concepts of exception, sovereignty and dictatorship stand at the core of Schmitt’s political thought. A central point of debate in the literature concerns whether these concepts should be read in continuity or rupture. McCormick (Reference McCormick and Dyzenhaus1998) emphasizes a shift, arguing that Die Diktatur defends a limited, commissarial dictatorship tied to the restoration of constitutional order, while Political Theology abandons this position in favor of an unbounded sovereign dictatorship. By contrast, other scholars stress the underlying continuity in Schmitt’s thought. Vinx (Reference Vinx2025) interprets Schmitt’s defense of sovereignty as consistently linking emergency powers with the sovereign decision. Howland (Reference Howland2018) and Liew (Reference Liew2012) similarly argue that commissarial and sovereign dictatorship are not opposed stages but rather complementary aspects of a coherent theoretical framework. Keane (Reference Keane1993) also underscores this consistency, interpreting Schmitt’s Weimar writings as an effort to integrate sovereignty and dictatorship in ways that, however, destabilized parliamentary democracy. Building on this latter line of interpretation, this paper contends that the state of exception, sovereignty and dictatorship should indeed be read as complementary concepts. Far from being merely historical curiosities, they remain analytically powerful and continue to provide useful tools for examining the functioning and transformation of contemporary political regimes.

Beyond Schmitt – Critical engagements

While Schmitt’s concepts of sovereignty, exception and dictatorship offer a powerful lens for analyzing constitutional rupture, they have provoked sustained critique. Legal theorists and democratic theorists warn that his decisionism – the primacy of decision over law – risks legitimizing authoritarian rule and eroding constitutionalism (Scheuerman Reference Scheuerman1994; Dyzenhaus Reference Dyzenhaus1997). Agamben (Reference Agamben2005) extends this concern, arguing that exceptional measures risk becoming routine, while Habermas (Reference Habermas1996) and Howse (Reference Howse and Dyzenhaus1998) insist that sovereignty must be bound within law and communicative processes. Others, like Arendt (Reference Arendt2006) and Mouffe (Reference Mouffe2000, Reference Mouffe2005), seek to adapt Schmitt’s insights on constituent power and conflict to more democratic ends. These debates are crucial here not only to recognize the dangers in Schmitt’s framework but also to clarify what remains analytically useful – and why a critical reworking is needed for applying his categories to Turkey’s constitutional trajectory.

One of the most persistent critiques of Schmitt concerns his elevation of decision over law. For Schmitt, the sovereign decision on the exception cannot be bound by legal norms, since it is precisely what determines whether law applies. Critics have argued that this framework risks legitimizing lawless authority. Dyzenhaus (Dyzenhaus Reference Dyzenhaus1997: 46–47) insists that emergencies must themselves be subject to the rule of law; otherwise, constitutionalism collapses into authoritarianism. By treating legality as dispensable in moments of crisis, he thinks that Schmitt undermines the very idea that government can be constrained by law. Scheuerman (Scheuerman Reference Scheuerman1994: 22, 219–220) extends this critique, arguing that Schmitt’s approach normalizes exceptional measures by making them appear as indispensable tools of statecraft. What begins as a temporary suspension of norms can become institutionalized as routine governance, eroding democratic accountability. For these critics, the danger of Schmitt’s theory is not only historical – its association with his support for the Nazi regime – but structural: it offers no internal safeguards against the concentration of unchecked power.

If Dyzenhaus and Scheuerman criticize Schmitt for legitimizing lawless authority, Agamben (Reference Agamben2005: 2–3) radicalizes his framework by suggesting that the state of exception has become the normal paradigm of governance in modern democracies. He argues that the boundary between norm and exception has collapsed: measures once understood as temporary are increasingly institutionalized as permanent features of political life (Agamben Reference Agamben2005: 9, 59, 313). Emergency decrees, states of siege and security legislation no longer appear as extraordinary responses to crisis but as routine techniques of rule. Drawing on Schmitt, Agamben (Reference Agamben2005: 3) insists that modern constitutional democracies constantly operate ‘on the threshold’ between law and politics, legality and illegality. This blurring, he warns, risks creating a permanent zone of indistinction where rights and legal protections are suspended indefinitely. For Agamben, then, the Schmittian sovereign decision is not merely episodic but structural: it produces a political order in which exception itself becomes the rule.

Democratic theorists have rejected Schmitt’s decisionism by insisting that sovereignty must be bound within the legal order rather than standing above it. Habermas (Reference Habermas1996: 170–171), for instance, argues that modern constitutionalism should replace Schmitt’s sovereign decision with the notion of popular sovereignty institutionalized through democratic procedures. For him, legitimate authority derives not from a decisive act that suspends norms but from ongoing processes of communicative deliberation and constitutional self-reflection (Habermas Reference Habermas1996: 487). The people’s will becomes sovereign only insofar as it is mediated by law and embedded in participatory democratic institutions (Habermas Reference Habermas1996: 489–90). Similarly, Howse (Reference Howse and Dyzenhaus1998), reading Schmitt through Strauss, argues that liberal constitutionalism seeks to domesticate sovereignty by embedding it in law, thereby countering the existential friend–enemy politics Schmitt celebrates; constitutional democracy, on this view, draws its strength not from escaping norms but from constraining political power through legality. On this account, constitutional democracy is not weakened by its commitment to norms; rather, its strength lies in constraining political power through legality. Where Schmitt sees paralysis, Habermas and Howse see protection: the absence of unchecked authority is precisely what allows for pluralism and rights to flourish. From this perspective, Schmitt’s framework is normatively unacceptable, since it subordinates legality to decision and exposes democracy to authoritarian capture. Yet, these critiques also underscore the analytical distinction of Schmitt’s approach: whereas democratic theory emphasizes continuity through law, Schmitt draws attention to the ruptures where law itself is suspended.

Not all engagements with Schmitt are wholly critical. Some thinkers have sought to adapt aspects of his framework to grapple with the persistence of conflict and the role of constituent power in modern democracies. Arendt, for example, while sharply opposed to Schmitt’s decisionism, similarly emphasized the founding moment of political communities. In On Revolution (1963), she portrayed constituent power as arising from collective action in moments of rupture, rather than from the decision of a single sovereign. For Arendt, revolutionary beginnings exemplify the human capacity for collective political creation, even as she rejected Schmitt’s association of sovereignty with absolute and potentially authoritarian authority (Scheuerman Reference Scheuerman and Dyzenhaus1998). Mouffe takes a different approach, appropriating Schmitt’s insight into the ineradicability of antagonism in politics. Where Schmitt posits the friend–enemy distinction as constitutive of the political, Mouffe (Reference Mouffe2005: 20) argues that this antagonism can and should be transformed into ‘agonism’, a form of institutionalized contestation among adversaries rather than existential enemies. In her reading, Schmitt alerts us to the limits of liberal rationalism and the necessity of conflict, but his decisionism must be reworked to sustain pluralist democracy (Mouffe Reference Mouffe2000: 15–16). These adaptations demonstrate the conceptual fertility of Schmitt’s framework beyond his own illiberal commitments. By reinterpreting sovereignty, conflict and constituent power, Arendt and Mouffe show that Schmitt’s categories can be mobilized for democratic theory, even if they require significant transformation.

Taken together, these critiques highlight both the dangers and the contested legacy of Schmitt’s thought. Dyzenhaus and Scheuerman warn that his decisionism legitimizes unconstrained authority and normalizes emergency as governance. Habermas and Howse stress the democratic imperative to bind sovereignty within law, while Agamben pushes Schmitt’s logic further by portraying exception as a permanent paradigm. Arendt and Mouffe, by contrast, reclaim elements of Schmitt – constituent power, antagonism – while stripping them of their authoritarian edge. Yet despite their value, these perspectives remain primarily normative or structural. They highlight authoritarian dangers, diagnose overextension of exception, or propose democratic reinterpretations. What they do not fully explain is how sovereignty is reconfigured in practice when legality itself becomes the site of transformation. For that task, Schmitt’s categories of exception, sovereignty and dictatorship remain indispensable – not as normative ideals but as analytical tools to trace how exceptional powers remake constitutional orders. Provided they are critically reworked, these concepts allow us to capture processes of rupture and refoundation that other frameworks tend to obscure.

Adapting Schmitt to Turkey’s constitutional trajectory

Schmitt’s theory of sovereignty, exception and dictatorship offers powerful tools for analyzing constitutional rupture, but it requires adaptation to capture the Turkish experience. Schmitt envisioned sovereignty primarily as a personal decision – the act of a singular figure standing outside and above the legal order. In his account, the sovereign is the one who declares the exception and determines both the scope of crisis and the measures required to resolve it. Yet, Turkey’s constitutional history shows that sovereignty has not always been exercised by individuals alone. For instance, at key moments of rupture, sovereign authority was exercised not by a single individual but by collective or institutional actors – such as the First Grand National Assembly in 1921, the second Assembly under single-party rule in 1924, the National Unity Committee (Milli Birlik Komitesi) following the 1960 military coup and the National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Konseyi)Footnote ¹ that governed after the 1980 intervention. At these critical junctures, these bodies were able to act as collective sovereign decision-making authorities in the Schmittian sense, suspending existing constitutional norms and initiating processes of constitutional reconstruction. Although internally heterogeneous, they exercised sovereignty externally as collective actors capable of determining the constitutional order.Footnote ² To analyze Turkey, therefore, Schmitt’s categories must be broadened to encompass not only personal sovereignty but also collective and institutional forms.

This broader conception reveals sovereignty in Turkey as historically shifting between different loci of authority depending on who successfully claimed the capacity to decide on the exception. In the late Ottoman period, sovereignty remained concentrated in the Sultan, whose authority to suspend constitutions and dissolve assemblies exemplified a personalist form of rule. In the early republican period, sovereignty was vested in the Assembly, which functioned as a constituent power during the War of Independence and then as a sovereign dictator in 1924 by dissolving the provisional framework of 1921. In the mid-twentieth century, military juntas repeatedly claimed sovereignty by suspending the constitutional order, executing or imprisoning political leaders and drafting new constitutions to institutionalize their role as guardians of the Republic. Finally, in the post-2016 period, sovereignty was consolidated in personal form under President Erdoğan, who employed the state of emergency as a vehicle for founding a new constitutional order. Each of these moments illustrates how sovereignty in Turkey has been constituted, transferred and transformed not through gradual legal development but through states of exception, in which authority was claimed by actors able to act as a sole body. From the Sultan’s suspension of the 1876 Constitution, to the Assembly’s wartime powers in 1921, to the military’s coups in 1960 and 1980 and finally to Erdoğan’s use of the post-2016 emergency, it was in such exceptional contexts that sovereign power revealed itself most clearly (Constitution of the Ottoman Empire 1876).

Recasting Schmitt in this way, and foregrounding the historical moments of exception, makes it possible to interpret Turkey’s constitutional development not as a linear story of democratic erosion or regime change, but as a sequence of sovereign reconstitutions. Legal autocratization, authoritarian constitutionalism, populism, competitive authoritarianism, neopatrimonialism and political-economy approaches explain important aspects of legitimation, institutional imbalance, or material foundations of rule, yet they do not account for the decisive role of exceptions in founding new political orders. By contrast, a reworked Schmittian framework highlights how exceptional powers have functioned not only to manage crises but also to re-establish sovereignty, whether through parliaments, military juntas, or president. This perspective clarifies the logic of Turkey’s constitutional trajectory and, more broadly, demonstrates the analytical utility of Schmitt’s categories – critically revised – to understand how sovereignty is redefined in moments of rupture. To examine these dynamics empirically, the study adopts a historical-constitutional case study of Turkey, using Schmitt’s concepts as analytical tools to trace how sovereignty has been reconstituted in moments of exception.

From Sultan to Parliament: Personal Sovereignty to Collective Sovereignty (1876–1924)

As one of the attempts to prevent the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the 1876 Constitution fell short of establishing a genuine constitutional monarchy but introduced important innovations such as a bicameral assembly (Özbudun Reference Özbudun2011: 4). Sovereignty, however, remained with the Sultan. As Tanör (Reference Tanör2021: 136) notes, this was clear from the absence of contrary provisions, the Sultan’s concentration of powers and his designation as the state’s primary organ. From a Schmittian perspective, sovereignty appeared not in the text but in Abdülhamid II’s suspension of the Assembly in 1878. Justified by the Russo–Turkish War, this act illustrated the essence of sovereignty: deciding when normal rules no longer apply and acting beyond them. Rather than preserving the 1876 order in a commissarial role, Abdülhamid exercised sovereign dictatorship, nullifying the framework and reinstating absolutism. Although the constitution formally remained in force until 1908, ultimate authority rested with the Sultan, exemplifying Schmitt’s decisionism.

The Second Constitutional Era (1908–1918) reflected contested sovereignty. The 1909 amendments curtailed the Sultan and empowered the Assembly, but sovereignty was divided among monarch, legislature and rival factions. Ambiguity ended in 1913, when the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) seized power and governed through exceptional measures. Sovereignty revealed itself most starkly in 1914, when Enver Pasha unilaterally committed the empire to the Central Powers. This was not merely foreign policy but a sovereign act: defining the existential friend–enemy boundary without meaningful constitutional authorization. The Assembly remained in place, but its role was subordinated to CUP rule.

The 1921 Constitution, drafted amid the War of Independence, concentrated sovereignty in the Grand National Assembly, which acted as legislature, executive and constituent authority (Constitution of the Republic of Turkey 1921; Gözler Reference Gözler2000b). In Schmittian terms, the Assembly functioned as a sovereign dictatorship by breaking with the Ottoman order and instituting republican rule while simultaneously exercising commissarial functions to defend it in wartime. This duality is illustrated by the delegation of extraordinary powers to Mustafa Kemal as commander-in-chief. Initially granted for 3 months, extended repeatedly, and lasting until September 1923, the delegation gave him sweeping powers. Yet strict time limits, contested renewals and debates over his title (Ortak Reference Ortak2022: 32) underscored the Assembly’s insistence on retaining ultimate sovereignty. In effect, Mustafa Kemal wielded commissarial authority to protect the new order but remained accountable to the Assembly – closely resembling the Roman commissarial dictatorship Schmitt (Reference Schmitt, Hoelzl and Ward.2013: 112–18) describes.

The 1924 Constitution consolidated this revolutionary rupture into a permanent framework (Constitution of the Republic of Turkey 1924). It affirmed republican government (Art. 1) and declared sovereignty unconditionally vested in the nation (Art. 3). In practice, sovereignty was exercised by the Grand National Assembly under single-party, Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) dominance, marking a shift from wartime unity to majoritarian parliamentary supremacy (Özbudun Reference Özbudun2011; Tanör Reference Tanör2021). In Schmittian terms, the second-term Assembly formed after the declaration of Republic acted as a sovereign dictator: dissolving the provisional 1921 framework and reconstituting sovereignty in legal form. At the same time, it authorized commissarial powers when required, most notably through the 1925 Law on the Maintenance of Public Order (Takrir-i Sükun). Although formally temporary, it was extended and used to silence opposition (Zürcher Reference Zürcher1991). In Schmittian terms, the law operationalized the friend–enemy distinction: those resisting secular and nationalist reforms were cast as existential enemies of the Republic, while the parliament positioned itself as guardian of the national will. Thus, the 1924 Constitution entrenched parliamentary sovereignty, both as the sovereign authority that founded the new regime and as the body that delegated commissarial powers to the executive in moments of crisis. Even at the height of Atatürk’s influence, proposals to expand presidential powers were rejected (Özbudun Reference Özbudun2011: 7), confirming that sovereignty remained constitutionally vested in the legislature rather than in any individual officeFootnote ³.

Together, these constitutional ruptures chart the passage from personal sovereignty under the Sultan to collective sovereignty exercised by the Assembly. In each case, sovereignty was revealed in exceptional moments: Abdülhamid’s suspension of constitutional order, the CUP’s wartime dictatorship and the Assembly’s revolutionary and commissarial role in 1921–24. These episodes confirm Schmitt’s insight that constitutions crystallize sovereign decisions born in crisis (Schmitt Reference Schmitt2008) and show how sovereignty in Turkey was reconstituted through the transfer of authority from monarch to legislature.

The military as sovereign arbiter (1960–2000s)

The transition to multi-party politics in 1945 introduced a new configuration of political authority within the republican constitutional framework. With the electoral victory of the Democrat Party (DP) in 1950, political legitimacy increasingly derived from competitive elections and popular mandate rather than from the revolutionary authority of the founding elite. From a Schmittian perspective, however, this period represents not a displacement of sovereignty but the continuation of parliamentary sovereignty under new political leadership. While the identity of political friends and enemies shifted – most notably from the CHP-led founding elite to the DP – the constitutional framework that enabled majoritarian parliamentary rule remained largely intact. In this sense, the change concerned who exercised sovereign authority rather than where sovereignty resided. Yet tensions between majoritarian political authority and oppositional forces intensified throughout the decade. The escalating conflict between the government and its opponents, together with growing polarization within the political system, ultimately culminated in the 1960 military intervention, which would once again redefine the locus of sovereign authority.

The 1961 Constitution emerged out of this intervention in 1960, when a group of low-ranking officers – justifying their coup as necessary to protect national unity and the Kemalist revolution (Harris Reference Harris1970) – overthrew the DP. In Schmittian terms, the military assumed the role of a sovereign dictator, declaring the existing order illegitimate and instituting a new one. By executing Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and other DP leaders, the junta not only punished political adversaries but also designated them as enemies of the Republic, thereby reconstituting the political community through exclusion. A Constituent Assembly, deliberately excluding the DP political stream, drafted the new constitution, which was submitted to a referendum as a means of legitimizing this sovereign decision in the name of the people.

The 1961 Constitution fundamentally restructured political authority. It introduced separation of powers, judicial review and a bicameral legislature and granted autonomy to universities and public broadcasting (Tanör Reference Tanör2021: 394–395). According to Soysal (Reference Soysal1969: 53), it displaced the exclusive exercise of sovereignty from the popularly elected parliament and reallocated it across multiple constitutional institutions. Crucially, the military entrenched its own role within the new constitutional order. Through the making the National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu, MGK) constitutional body and reserved Senate seats, it institutionalized itself as a third branch of executive authority, alongside the President and the Council of Ministers (Akgüner Reference Akgüner1983; Tanör Reference Tanör2021). In this way, the military positioned itself as an arbiter of sovereignty – not the sole ruler, but the institution constitutionally empowered to determine when elected governments crossed the line of legitimacy (Özbudun Reference Özbudun2011: 12).

The 1961 Constitution also introduced, for the first time, explicit provisions for states of emergency and martial law (Arts 123–124), later expanded in 1974 to cover wartime situations (Constitution of the Republic of Turkey 1961). Emergencies arising from natural disasters or economic crises were regulated by law, but martial law – including during war – could be declared by the Council of Ministers, subject to immediate parliamentary approval. This innovation codified what Schmitt would call a paradox of the exception: by attempting to regulate crises through law, the constitution presupposed an authority capable of declaring when the exception exists. In practice, this role was secured for the military through its institutionalization in the MGK. By embedding itself within the constitutional framework as a permanent arbiter of national security, the military became indispensable to the decision on the exception, positioning itself as both sovereign dictator in 1960 and commissary dictator in subsequent interventions, such as the 1971 memorandum.

The 1980 coup deepened this pattern. Justified as a response to ideological polarization, economic collapse and escalating violence, the military once again acted as a sovereign dictator, dissolving parliament, banning parties and suspending rights. A new constitution, drafted by a council appointed by the junta and ratified in a tightly controlled referendum, centralized executive authority and expanded presidential powers, while curbing freedoms of speech, association and labor (Tanör Reference Tanör1991). The 1982 Constitution entrenched military tutelage more deeply than 1961 by elevating the MGK’s role to that of a semi-sovereign organ within the ‘Fundamental Organs of the Republic’ (Constitution of the Republic of Turkey 1982). Its composition – Prime Minister, the Chief of the General Staff, Deputy Prime Ministers, Ministers of Justice, National Defence, Internal Affairs, and Foreign Affairs, the Commanders of the Army, Navy and Air Forces and the General Commander of the Gendarmerie, under the chairmanship of the President of the Republic (Art. 118) – symbolized the fusion of civilian and military authority, with the armed forces at its core.

Although formally designated as ‘advisory’, the MGK wielded decisive influence in the constitutional order established by the 1982 Constitution. Article 118 charged it with formulating recommendations to the Council of Ministers on the ‘formulation, establishment, and implementation of the national security policy of the state’. The Council was required to ‘primarily consider’ its views, particularly in matters concerning the state’s existence, national integrity and public order. This institutional design made the MGK more than a consultative body: it embedded the military directly into the constitutional framework of decision-making during crises. By shaping the national security agenda and narrowing the options available to elected governments, the MGK effectively positioned itself as the arbiter of political legitimacy (Heper and Çinar Reference Heper and Çinar1996).

In Schmittian terms, this role was especially significant in situations where the friend–enemy distinction became operative. Whereas emergencies such as natural disasters or economic crises did not entail a political adversary, the MGK’s influence was decisive in crises of ‘public order’ where enemies had to be named. In such moments, the MGK functioned as a de facto sovereign: formally constrained within advisory structures, but in practice exercising the authority to define existential threats and to steer outcomes accordingly. Its role thus exemplified a commissarial dictatorship, preserving the constitutional order the military itself had created, while simultaneously revealing how sovereignty could be exercised from behind an ostensibly subordinate institution.

This tutelary sovereignty was exercised in practice. Following the lifting of nationwide martial law in 1987, the state established a special emergency governorate in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia to combat the Kurdish insurgency, which the MGK explicitly framed as an existential enemy of the Republic under the label of ‘terrorism’. This extraordinary regime, lasting until 2002, empowered governors with sweeping authority and facilitated direct military involvement in civilian governance (Öztan and Bezci Reference Öztan and Bezci2015). Similarly, political Islam was constructed as a systemic foe of the secular order. This framing culminated in the 1997 ‘postmodern coup’, when the MGK compelled the Islamist Welfare Party-led government to resign – not by suspending the constitution but by invoking national security imperatives to redefine the boundaries of legitimate politics (Cizre and Çınar Reference Cizre and Çınar2003).

In both cases, the military acted as the arbiter of sovereignty: not always suspending the legal order wholly but claiming the authority to define the exception, designate the enemy and determine the limits of legitimate politics. Through this dual role – sovereign dictatorship in 1960 and 1980, commissarial oversight via the MGK in subsequent decades – the military did not merely arbitrate among institutions; it institutionalized itself as the sovereign arbiter, shaping Turkey’s constitutional development for half a century.

The July 15 coup attempt and the presidential capture of sovereignty

Although Turkey’s military interventions varied in character (Tachau and Heper Reference Tachau and Heper1983), their consistent pattern was to embed the armed forces within the sovereign structure of the regime since 1960s. By the 2000s, the military’s capacity to act as a unified sovereign body was already eroding. Islamist movements were tolerated after 1980 (Şen Reference Şen2010) but reclassified as existential enemies by the 1990s, culminating in the 1997 ‘postmodern coup’. With the AKP’s rise to power in 2002, the military resisted through judicial maneuvers and the 2007 ‘e-memorandum’. Yet the AKP, supported by its then-ally the Gülen movement, gradually dismantled secularist cadres via the Ergenekon trials and reconstituted state institutions with loyalists. The 2010 constitutional amendments further weakened military and judicial autonomy, embedding pro-AKP actors into key posts. By 2016, however, conflict between the AKP and the Gülenists culminated in the coup attempt led by Gülenist officers, many facing imminent purge in the upcoming Supreme Military Council (Yüksek Askeri Şura, YAŞ) (T24 2016).

The failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016, by contrast, marked a decisive rupture: rather than restoring or extending military tutelage, it precipitated its collapse and paved the way for the consolidation of civilian sovereignty under President Erdoğan. In Schmittian terms, the coup failed because the plotters were unable to decide on the exception and thus to identify the enemy in a way that could constitute a new sovereign order. They invoked Kemalist tropes of defending secularism and democracy but could not mobilize either the wider military or the people. Their claim to sovereignty collapsed because they lacked both unity and legitimacy. Erdoğan, by contrast, succeeded in asserting sovereign authority. His televised call for popular mobilization framed the plotters as existential enemies of the nation and invoked his constitutional role as Commander-in-Chief. The mass mobilization of citizens against the coup represented not only the defeat of the military intervention but also a moment of sovereign occupation by Erdoğan, who now defined both the exception and the enemy. For the first time in republican history, the military was decisively subordinated to civilian authority in an exceptional moment of crisis.

Shortly after, the MGK chaired by Erdoğan officially designated the Gülenist network as a terrorist organization, emphasized the national will and democracy and recommended a state of emergency under Article 120 (MGK Genel Sekreterliği 2016). Symbolically, this was a watershed: the MGK, once the institutional vehicle of military tutelage, now acknowledged civilian authority as the sole arbiter of the exception. In Schmittian terms, the military’s failure to unify its sovereign claim and Erdoğan’s success in defining the enemy marked a fundamental transfer of sovereignty.

While military tutelage had already been weakening, the failed coup provided the opportunity for Erdoğan to consolidate his personal capture of sovereignty. This sovereign claim, however, remained de facto until it was formalized through the post-2016 state of emergency and the 2017 constitutional amendments (Constitution of the Republic of Turkey 2017). As Erdoğan himself declared: ‘We are racing against time; we need to take decisions quickly and reach results quickly’ (DW Türkçe Reference Türkçe2016). These remarks signaled not just urgency but a sovereign shift from commissarial defense to sovereign refoundation – a trajectory fully realized under the emergency regime.

From state of emergency to personal sovereignty (2016–2018)

Although the 1982 Constitution formally vested emergency governance in the Council of Ministers, chaired by the President, the failed coup immediately revealed a different reality. In practice, Erdoğan emerged as the sole authority in managing the crisis. The state of emergency thus functioned as a transitional phase in which he exercised de facto constituent power, suspending legal constraints and preparing the ground for a new constitutional regime. During this period, constitutional mechanisms were widely used in abusive ways, and the judiciary was increasingly instrumentalized to consolidate executive authority (Yılmaz Reference Yılmaz2020; Tekin Reference Tekin2022). As the Venice Commission (2016) noted, measures introduced as temporary responses were quickly transformed into permanent institutional changes. What began as a commissarial dictatorship – aimed at restoring order by suppressing the Gülenist network – gradually evolved into a sovereign dictatorship, in Schmitt’s sense, where emergency powers were used to refound the political order itself.

The shift from commissarial to sovereign dictatorship was evident in the expansive use of decree-laws. Initially justified as extraordinary measures, these decrees soon restructured the judiciary, bureaucracy, media and civil society on a lasting basis. Tens of thousands of officials were dismissed, opposition voices silenced, and institutions subordinated to executive will through decree-laws. Drawing on Schmitt’s friend–enemy distinction, the regime determined who qualified as an enemy through decree-laws (KHK 672, 1 September 2016, Art. 2; KHK 689, 29 April 2017, Art. 5), subsequently designating not only Gülenists but also dissident Kurds and segments of the broader opposition as existential threats to the state. Once identified as such, their exclusion justified sweeping purges. Judicial oversight, previously claimed by the Constitutional Court (Gözler Reference Gözler2000a), was effectively suspended: many decrees were excluded from review and only some were retroactively approved by parliament, thus opening the way for judicial review of these. Mechanisms designed to protect the constitution were thus repurposed for its dismantling, confirming Schmitt’s warning that emergency clauses can become instruments of regime change.

Beyond repression, emergency rule enabled deep institutional reordering. The armed forces were placed under direct presidential control: provincial governors were authorized to command local units, the YAŞ was reorganized to secure a pro-presidential majority (KHK 668, 27 July 2016; KHK 669, 31 July 2016), and the Force Commands were detached from the Chief of General Staff and subordinated directly to the Presidency (KHK 669, Art. 33). Remaining dissident officers were purged through decrees. In the electoral arena, emergency regulations allowed the government to appoint trustees in municipalities under investigation for ‘terror links’, undermining opposition control of local government and eroding electoral integrity (KHK 674, 1 September 2016, Arts 38, 39). In Schmittian terms, sovereignty had come to rest with the actor who not only declared the exception but also rewrote the rules of political competition under its cover.

Approved by a contested referendum, the 2017 amendments abolished the Prime Minister’s office and dissolved the Council of Ministers (Art. 8), concentrating executive power entirely in the Presidency. Erdoğan gained the authority to issue presidential decrees in executive matters without prior parliamentary authorization (Art. 104), while legislative oversight was hollowed out: votes of confidence and interpellation were abolished (Arts 98, 99), and parliament’s budgetary role reduced to approving or rejecting drafts prepared by the President (Art. 161). The judiciary was simultaneously reshaped, with military courts abolished (Art. 142) and key judicial bodies restructured to ensure executive dominance (Art. 159).

Equally significant was the reconfiguration of exceptional governance. The amendments abolished the categories of martial law and state of war, unifying all extraordinary situations under the state of emergency (Art. 119) – now declarable solely by the President, subject only to parliamentary approval. With a civilian majority appointed by the President, the President also gained control over the MGK’s duties and secretariat (Art. 118), subordinating what had once been a military-dominated body to direct presidential authority. This amounted to the complete personalization of the exception: sovereignty was no longer dispersed across institutions, but concentrated in the figure of the President as the sole arbiter of crisis.

A final maneuver reinforced this shift. Law No. 7142 (2018), adopted just before the 2018 elections, authorized the outgoing Council of Ministers to issue transitional decree-laws to prepare the new system. Although constitutionally dubious (Kanadoğlu and Duygun Reference Kanadoğlu and Duygun2018) – since the amendment law (Law No. 6771, 2017, Art. 17) mandated parliament itself to enact transition rules – this authorization granted Erdoğan’s government sweeping powers to repeal and restructure legislation ahead of assuming office under the presidential system. In Schmittian terms, this use of legality to mask constituent authority epitomized the sovereign dictatorship: the appearance of continuity concealed the rupture of a new regime founded through decision.

Taken together, the 2016–2018 period illustrates how the state of emergency became the vehicle for Turkey’s constitutional transformation. The coup plotters failed because they could not unify the military or define the enemy decisively enough to claim sovereignty. Erdoğan succeeded in both: he named the enemy, mobilized the people and used the exception to dismantle the old order and establish a new one. Erdoğan’s sovereign claim, asserted de facto during the emergency, only became fully legalized with the 2018 presidential elections, when the new constitutional framework entered into force. The trajectory from commissarial to sovereign dictatorship was completed during the 2016–2018 state of emergency, culminating in the 2017 amendments and the transitional decree-laws that prepared their implementation. With the presidential elections of 2018, these changes came fully into force, entrenching a system of personal executive sovereignty under the guise of constitutional legality.