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Deposit guide Contact: email Spectacles and Spectres Political Trials, Performativity and Scenes of Sovereignty Başak Ertür School of Law Birkbeck, University of London submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of London January 2015 declaration I hereby declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own, except where explicit reference is made to the work of others. abstract Political trials are generally understood as extraordinary events in the life of liberal democracies, dramatically staging claims to and contests over political authority and legitimacy. Notably, political trials often attract commentary on their theatrics whereby the spectacle becomes a matter of uneasy scrutiny, despite the tacit cross- cultural acknowledgment that the trial is an inherently theatrical form. This thesis is an attempt to conceptualise the political operations and effects of the relation between performance and performativity in trials, treating these as separate but related terms. It proposes a new framework for studying political trials by drawing on theories of performativity (J.L. Austin, Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler, Shoshana Felman, Stanley Cavell) which assist not only in rethinking the role and effects of performance in trials, but also in introducing a multivalence to the meaning of ‘political’ in political trials. In other words, performative theory allows the formulation of the politics of trials beyond its standard conception in terms of the utilisation of legal procedure for political ends or expediency, instead attuning us to the unconscious processes, inadvertent gestures, ghostly operations, structural infelicities and other similar dynamics that recast the political effects of legal proceedings. This thesis is therefore an attempt to conceptualise the spectacles and spectres of justice at the intersection of law and politics. In addition to incorporating brief discussions of various 20th and 21st century political trials to develop this theoretical framework, it offers close studies of three cases: the 1921 Berlin trial of Soghomon Tehlirian, and two contemporary ‘deep state’ trials from Turkey – the Ergenekon trial, and the Hrant Dink murder trial. A sustained concern is with legacies of political violence, how they are addressed or contained by law, and how they are perpetuated by law. acknowledgements This thesis is greatly indebted to my supervisors Costas Douzinas and Elena Loizidou. Costas’s passionate engagement with the ideas here –including ones that made him impatient– his graciousness, humour, sincerity and warmth has been a constant source of encouragement. I have yet to encounter as generous an interlocutor as Elena, who has contributed to the project with her signature creative reading and humbling camaraderie. Birkbeck Law School has been the supportive and intellectually stimulating institutional setting that a PhD candidate today could only dream of. I am grateful to Patricia Tuitt and other colleagues for entrusting me with various resources that allowed me to pursue this project, especially the generous Ronnie Warrington Studentship. Stewart Motha’s friendship has been a pleasure and privilege, I thank him for his caring engagement, and for creating opportunities for me to air parts this research in various settings, including a session on his LLB seminar ‘Doing Justice to the Past’ where I could go on about ghosts. I am also indebted to Marinos Diamantides who has made space for my work on the Turkish deep state on his fascinating LLM seminar ‘Constitutional Law and Practice: Regional Perspectives’. Peter Fitzpatrick, whose lively mind never fails to leave me in awe, generously spared an ‘occasional’ on his ongoing reading group for us to stage a stimulating encounter between J.L. Austin and Jacques Derrida on performativity. But perhaps the single most rewarding aspect of being at Birkbeck Law School has been its research community. I hope to continue growing with Hannah Franzki, Lisa Wintersteiger, Tara Mulqueen, Mayur Suresh, Dan Matthews, Soo Tian Lee, Beto Yamato and others who have made all the difference, literally. Thank you Sarah Lamble for looking out for me, and Daniel Monk for teaching me the few things I know about teaching. This project has received support from various other individuals and institutions. I wish to express my gratitude to Awol K. Allo and Emilios Christodoulidis for hosting me first at the ‘PGR Colloquium on Political Trials and International Justice’ at Glasgow University; and later, with Karin van Marle, at the at the ‘Rivonia Trial 50 Years On’ conference at University of Pretoria. The ‘Constitutions and Crisis’ workshop held in Hamburg by Altona Foundation for Philosophical Research proved an invaluable opening for me to work out certain key knots in the argument. I thank Valerie Kerruish and Uwe Petersen for sustaining such a rare space for the life of the mind, and the participants of the workshop for the thorough engagement. Rasha Salti’s auspicious touch on this thesis came in the form of a commission for a small edited volume for Sharjah Biennial 10 which enabled me to think otherwise about the theme of conspiracy. Some of the ideas in this thesis first took shape under the incredibly generous guidance of Ross Poole. I cherish every trace I can discern of our conversations in the folds my thoughts and these pages. I have been bestowed with the time and attention of some of the keenest readers: Meltem Ahıska, Hannah Franzki, Eirini Avramopoulou, Tara Mulqueen, and Eric Bogosian read and provided crucial feedback on parts of this thesis as it was developing. It is thanks to their contributions and engagement that the thoughts here could live and breathe. I could not have found my way through German-language sources if it weren’t for the generous assistance that Marcus Kern provided. I am grateful to Hannah and Eddie Bruce-Jones for their assistance with German references. Others, too, have given generously in this process: thank you Garine Aivazian for the aesthetic and thank you Lawrence Abu Hamdan for the ludic. Dear Jane, Sara, Susie, and Melissa – thank you for the witchcraft. My parents Yaprak Zihnioğlu and Gürhan Ertür have offered not only material and emotional sustenance throughout this project, but also the gift of genuine engagement. I am grateful to my mother for her confidence that all would turn out well, and for her help with the Ottoman newspaper archives. And I am grateful to my father for sustaining that sparkle in his eyes and prompting for more as he’d listen to me tell him about the project at various different stages. I am the luckiest person alive to be surrounded with wonderful friends who have been there for me in countless ways, big and small, as I wrestled with this project. Space will not allow so many individual mentions, but I take solace in the knowledge that you know who you are. I cannot fail to mention Nicole Wolf, who has not only redefined what friendship may mean as best of friends do, but also stepped in at crucial moments to help me undo some of the knots I got myself into with this project. What a pleasure it has been to be held in her beautiful mind. The injustice of this medium becomes most palpable as I attempt to express my gratitude to the one person who has contributed nearly everything to this thesis: Alisa Lebow read and provided vital feedback on most of my writing here, lent her sparkling mind as a sounding board for both the key knots and the mundane moments in the argument, volunteered her critical acumen to continuously challenge and inspire my thinking. Thank you for the life of love, the joy of discovery and the humour of fallibility. For your brilliance and beauty, and for the fireworks, thank you. contents introduction 7 1 theorising political trials 27 defining the genre 31 the theoretical shift 34 kirchheimer: setting the parameters 37 judgment on nuremberg 41 shklar: politics of a trial 46 arendt: a trial of one’s own 51 between atrocity & performativity 61 2 performativity, performance, political trials 65 introducing the performative: fetishes & parasites 67 juridifying the performative: the scene of law 71 constating the performative: masquerade as metaphor 77 law & the force of convention 81 the political trial: performativity & performance 86 3 sovereign infelicities 96 three scenes 97 sovereign spectacles 100 sovereign performatives? 103 (mis)reading the performative: the theatrical turn 106 derrida’s austin: sovereign pretensions 109 reintegrating the theatrical 116 undoing sovereignty 119 4 ghosts in the courtroom: the trial of soghomon tehlirian 127 talât 128 tehlirian 133 enter ghost 135 the haunted haunter 140 the many lives of tehlirian 146 politics of haunting 151 the fore- & afterlives of a trial 156 5 the state of conspiracy: turkey’s deep state trials 164 four units and an accident: a brief history of turkey’s deep state 167 conceptualising the abysmal state 172 the ergenekon trial: the conspiracy to end all conspiracies? 181 the sneering state 190 singular will & state tradition 195 knowledge of the unknown 199 conclusion 208 bibliography 218 introduction The beginnings of some of the questions pursued and ideas developed in this thesis can be traced back to my involvement in the World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) from mid-2003 until late-2005.