Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Justice, Power and Resistance, cilt.0, sa.0, ss.1-12, 2026 (Hakemli Dergi)
Turkey has been through anomic conditions for quite some time, as serious forms of crime have increasingly seeped into almost every aspect of social life. Over the past two decades, crime has steadily expanded from bureaucratic corruption and organised criminal networks to everyday, low-level offences. This article places the rise of serious instrumental crime within a broader process of institutional breakdown, driven at the macro level by a distinctive articulation of market forces and politically-motivated social engineering marked by conservative and religious undertones. At the micro level, it follows how this same configuration plays out locally through neoliberal urban governance, urban transformation and gentrification projects, and the emergence of local drug markets. Drawing on ethnographic data conducted almost a decade ago, the article demonstrates that market logics have already done more than reshape urban landscapes: they weaken social ties, and it is precisely this erosion that makes the shift toward illicit economies easier and more seamless. Rising crime, then, can only be fully understood by taking seriously both the institutional framework and the socio-spatial contexts in which it unfolds.