The slow build: material and regulatory infrastructures and the rise of Turkey’s networked authoritarianism

Abstract Although Turkey’s authoritarian turn is often interpreted as a reaction to the Gezi resistance of 2013, this article argues that its foundations were laid much earlier through the gradual accumulation of infrastructure and legal frameworks. Rather than emerging as a sudden response to dissent, Turkey’s networked authoritarianism must be understood as the outcome of long-term infrastructural decisions that have extended through successive waves of privatization, legal control, and market consolidation. Drawing on a cartographic ethnographic methodology, this article maps the entanglement of media ownership, regulatory centralization, and expert discourse, as reflected in the Internet Conferences of Turkey (INET-TR) conferences, to show how early quiescence and missed interventions enabled a gradual shift toward centralized control. Unlike fully nationalized Internet models, Turkey’s approach is hybrid and strategic: it maintains international connectivity and commercial integration while exercising tight control over domestic information flows through a combination of layered legal and technical instruments. This historical context complicates linear narratives of rupture and resistance, demonstrating that authoritarian consolidation in digital infrastructures is not only about state repression but also about infrastructural and institutional standardization of control.