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The Making of Paramilitarism in Turkey book cover

1st Edition

The Making of Paramilitarism in Turkey

Edited By Özlem Has, Ayhan Işık Copyright 2026
184 Pages
by Routledge

184 Pages
by Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
This edited volume explores the history and evolution of Turkish paramilitarism from the late Ottoman period to the 2010s. Aimed at undergraduates, postgraduates, scholars, and non-specialists, it offers an interdisciplinary analysis of paramilitary forces’ influence on Turkey’s historical, political, social, legal, and visual landscapes. The book examines key issues such as the Armenian... Read more

Foreword: Paramilitarism in Turkey: Deception, Performance, and Violence

Uğur Ümit Üngör

List of Contributors

About the Book

PART I The Origins of Paramilitarism in Modern Turkey

1 Modern Bandits of Purgatory in the Transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic: A Story of Property Transfer in Aintab from Warlords to Urban Elite

Ümit Kurt

PART II Paramilitarism and Raison D’etat

2 Counterinsurgency in Turkey: Coloniality of Paramilitary Forces and Provocative Counterorganisation

Deniz Yonucu

3 At the Intersection of Domestic and Foreign Policy in Turkey: Transformation of the Capacity for Extralegal Violence and Kurdistan Issue

Çağrı Kurt

PART III The Functioning of Paramilitarism Abroad and At Home

4 Pro-Turkish State Vigilantism in Europe in the Post-1960s

Mazyar Khoojinian

5 The Politics of Violence and Exclusion: Paramilitary Groups and the Targeting of Alevi Communities in Turkey

Ozan Çavdar

PART IV 1990s: The Heyday of Paramilitarism

6 The Village Guard System: Socio-Anthropology of a Paramilitary Institution in Northern Kurdistan (Turkish Kurdistan)

Adnan Çelik

7 Strategically Ambiguous and Deniable: Paramilitary Violence and Psychological Warfare in the 1990s

Yeşim Yaprak Yıldız

PART V Post-Truth Paramilitarism

8 The Contractual Functioning of Paramilitary Violence in Turkey: The JİTEM Case

Özlem Has

9 Disfiguring Public Reality: Televisual and Paramilitary Visions

Sidar Bayram

Biography

Özlem Has is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Defence Studies at King’s College London. Her research interests include state formation, political violence, paramilitarism, and mercenarism. Her key publications include studies on paramilitaries in the Kurdish–Turkish conflict and private military companies.

Ayhan Işık is an independent researcher and an interdisciplinary political historian specializing in 20th- and 21st- century political violence, paramilitarism, and Kurdish Studies. He is author of a book titled Turkish Paramilitarism in Northern Kurdistan: State Violence in the 1990s that was published 2024.

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