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Paper short abstract:

How the new security clearance techniques in Turkey are different from old disciplinary techniques and whether they point to a different imagination of state-citizens relationship. The exclusionary regime of citizenship reduces people to 'disposable' subjects who are deprived of their rights.

Paper long abstract:

Extensive security demands and practices triggered new techno-biological control and surveillance techniques over ordinary citizens for decades around the world. Security vetting nearly standardised for immigrants, visa applicants, or staff for military establishments or government is now used in USA, China, European countries and also many parts of the world. In Turkey, additional security clearances and archival background checks carried out by the Turkish National Intelligence Service and/or the Security General Directorate became a requirement for public-sector and private sector hiring, particularly at private hospitals and universities after the coup attempt of July 2016. Security vetting under the emergency law after the coup attempt led to 250,000 people - considered as a threat to the national sovereignty of Turkish state - to be sacked with a government decree and without right to appeal. The same security vetting limited citizenship rights of more than 1,500,000 individuals only for being family members of these people dismissed from their jobs. How the new security clearance techniques are different from old disciplinary techniques and whether they point to a categorically different imagination of state-citizens relationship. The exclusionary regime of citizenship reduces targeted people to 'disposable' subjects who are deprived over the longue durée of the opportunity to reclaim their social, economic, and political rights, even after they have been acquitted or the state of emergency lifted.