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Paper short abstract:

In the face of radical uncertainties, predictability and the lack thereof are forcefully addressed as extremely vital political concerns. Taking Turkey as an example, this paper explores what the contentious politics of authoritarian unpredictabilities can tell us about the role of states.

Paper long abstract:

In the face of radical uncertainties, predictability and the lack thereof are forcefully addressed as extremely vital political concerns. This is decisive in the context of authoritarian states, particularly pertaining to the management of insecurities in the wake of multiple crises during a global pandemic. In this respect, the Covid-19 pandemic has challenged the (supposed) role of the nation-state in security. It has also highlighted how un/accountabilities are produced, assigned, or manipulated. Focusing on the forms of governing and the experience of pandemic and viral uncertainties in Turkey, this paper aims to explore the contentious politics of strategically produced and/or deployed unpredictabilities by the state. It offers a sketch of the political situation and how unpredictabilities became routine rather than exceptional to the everyday lives of citizens. Drawing on remote-ethnographic material, I explore how authoritarian “unpredictableness” is enacted via state institutions, digital infrastructures, surveillance systems and data politics - during the pandemic and beyond -, and also experienced and contested within the digital and datafied worlds. This work opens up the question of what practices and debates around the lived experience with datafied (in)securities and political (un)predictabilities under the Presidential System in Turkey can tell us about the role of (authoritarian) states in uncertain times.