Security and citizenship in the global South: In/securing citizens in early republican Turkey (1923–1946). (December 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bilgin, Pinar; Ince, Basak
• Is Part Of: International relations. Volume 29:Number 4(2015)
• Page Start: 500
• Page End: 520
• Publication Date: 2015-12
• Subjects: citizenship -- global South -- International Society -- security -- standards of civilization -- Turkey; International relations -- Periodicals; World politics -- Periodicals; 303.482
• DOI: 10.1177/0047117814562219
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0047-1178

Abstract

The relationship between security and citizenship is more complex than media portrayals based on binary oppositions seem to suggest (included/excluded, security/insecurity), or mainstream approaches to International Relations (IR) and security seem to acknowledge. This is particularly the case in the post-imperial and/or postcolonial contexts of global South where the transition of people from subjecthood to citizenship is better understood as a process of in/securing. For, people were secured domestically as they became citizens with access to a regime of rights and duties. People were also secured internationally as citizens of newly independent 'nation-states' who were protected against interventions and/or 'indirect rule' by the (European) International Society, whose practices were often justified on grounds of the former's 'failings' in meeting the so-called 'standards of civilization'. Yet, people were also rendered insecure as they sought to approximate and/or resist the citizen imaginaries of the newly established 'nation-states'. The article illustrates this argument by looking at the case of Turkey in the early Republican era (1923–1946).