Yurttaşlık Söyleminin Dönüşüm ve Metalaşması Sürecinde Vatandaşlığın Kazanılması

Abstract

The fact that capitalist production relations have become determined, has created a fundamental break with the pre-capitalist social relations and led to the capitalist organization of the state and shaping of its functions in the context of the reproduction of capitalism. Citizenship emerged in this historical process, in which the capitalist mode of production dominated and the state was organized in the form of a capitalist state. The capitalist state power, which has been cleansed of its feudal elements, has been legitimized by being accepted as belonging to the citizens’ society. In this context, in order to maintain its legitimacy, the state has to ensure and reproduce social unity based on common belongings, values and discourses that hold the citizens together. However, the conditions of the capitalist mode of production acquire different contents in different periods, historical conditions and depending on the structure of social relations. The conceptual and institutional content of citizenship has also transformed due to the transformation of the regimes of accumulation. While citizenship was decribed with concepts of the non-market mediated social relations from the late 18th century to the 1970s, it has defined in the context of market-mediated relations since 1970s. The reflection of this transformation in legal orders is the regulation of investment based citizenship. This regulation emerged in 1970s, but has become widespread in Turkey and around the world in consequence of the 2008 crisis. The definition of citizenship in the context of market-mediated relations, in other words, its commodification, means that there is no social unity that can reproduce the capitalist mode of production, and leads to a extinction of the possibilities of ensuring the fundamental functions of the state. This may lead to a weakening of the legitimacy of the state and an inevitable crisis of the capitalist mode of production.