Embodying the State in the Margins: Men’s Forgings of Politics via Conspiratorial Narratives and Vigilante Violence

Abstract

This article explores the reconfigurations of state making in Turkey through an exploration of men’s circulation of conspiracy theories and engagements with vigilante violence since the 2000s. Rather than readily dismissing conspiratorial narratives because of their (anti)truth qualities, I suggest reading their circulation as a social practice through which (political) subjectivities and communities are forged. In addition, I argue that their circulation generates sociopolitical effects in the everyday. Detailing how the circulation of conspiratorial accounts generates vigilante violence against minorities and political dissent, the article demonstrates how stately privileges are delegated from the state to civilians. Within this configuration, states can no longer be conceived of as institutions that monopolize legitimate violence, as they come to rely on everyday breaches of the law by nonstate actors to exert their authority and control. The article concludes with a discussion of how the prevalence of societal violence against political dissent by nonstate actors might be said to reify, maintain, and reproduce the state, forcing us to rethink how conspiratorial narratives do not solely destabilize the truth but also generate dramatic setbacks for the way we conceive of society and politics. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.