A Neo-Liberal Exception? The Defence Industry ‘Turkification’ Project

Abstract

Presented at once as an example, a proof, and even a condition of the economic, technological, political and security development of Turkey, the ‘Turkification’ of the defence industry lies at the heart of the government’s legitimacy. Following a socio-historical approach, this chapter aims to understand how this major project, inseparable from the ongoing formation of the state and of a national bourgeoisie organically related to it, was reconfigured in the neo-liberal era not despite globalisation but based on it, particularly through the commodification of Muslim solidarity and military protection. This project appears to constitute an instrument of ‘nationaliberal’ extraversion that is part of an unstable quest for hegemony, riven by numerous conflicts.