Vigilantism in Turkey: Totalitarian Movements and Uncivil Society in a Post-9/11 Democracy

Turkey has witnessed a mushrooming of ultranationalist vigilante organisations in the public sphere in the early twenty-first century, which promotes a view of the relation of Islam to the state and ethnic nation distinct from that of Islamicist groups. Such organisations can be seen as totalitarian movements whose tactics of terrorising society in order to take over the state are reminiscent of the paramilitarism of the Weimer Republic. The aim of this study is to understand why and how these ultranationalist groups have emerged. It analyses the discourses and actions of the principal groups, and argues that the U.S. military intervention in Iraq, coinciding with the accession process to the EU and the election victory of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), has undermined the hegemony of the state elite and nationalist circles in the political and economic spheres. The increased visibility of Kurdish nationalists in the public sphere, the spate of terrorist attacks by the Kurdish separatist PKK, and the AKP's strict neo-liberal policies, profoundly unacceptable to the state elite and nationalist circles, have created an ideal habitat for the emergence of such vigilante organisations, which have a strong tradition in the history of modern Turkey.