In Turkey, the deep state () is an alleged group of influential anti-democratic coalitions inside the Turkish political structure, composed of high-level elements within the intelligence services (domestic and foreign), the Turkish military, security agencies, the judiciary, and mafia. The political agenda of the deep state network purportedly involves an allegiance to nationalism, corporatism, and state interests. Violence and other means of pressure have historically been employed in a largely covert manner to manipulate political and economic elites, ensuring that specific interests are met within the seemingly democratic framework of the political landscape. Former president Süleyman Demirel says that central to the outlook and behavior of the predominantly military elites who constitute the deep state, is an effort to uphold national interests which have been shaped by an entrenched belief, dating back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire, that the country is always "on the brink".
The alleged ideology of the deep state is anti-socialist, ultranationalist, secularist, anti-Kurdish, anti-democratic, and anti-liberal. As pointed out by former prime minister Bülent Ecevit, the diversity of opinion reflects the diversity of the various deep state coalitions, as the deep state is not so much an alliance, as several groups that work behind the scenes, each in pursuit of its own agenda. Another explanation contradicts the reduction of the deep state to an interest network and defines it as a type of domination based on the high level of autonomy enjoyed by the military that enables the security apparatus to disrupt formal democratic institutions (in the foreground) by employing a sui generis repertoire of informal institutions (in the background), i.e. putsch threat, autocratic cliques, mafia, organized crime and corruption. Rumours and conspiracy theories of a deep state existing have been widespread in Turkey since Ecevit's term as prime minister in the 1970s, after his revelation of the existence of a Turkish counterpart to Italy's Operation Gladio, the "Counter-Guerrilla". Many Turkish citizens, including elected politicians, suspect that the deep state exists, and may hold the key to unexplained events.
Background
Descriptions and countries
Turkey
"The expression 'deep state' had originated in Turkey in the 1990s, where the military colluded with drug traffickers and hitmen to wage a dirty war against Kurdish insurgents" (Journalist Robert F. Worth); the term (derin devlet) "colloquially speaking" refers to "'criminal' or 'rogue' element that have somehow muscled their way into power" (according to Ryan Gingeras); a "presumed clandestine network" of Turkish "military officers and their civilian allies" who, for decades, "suppressed and sometimes murdered dissidents, Communists, reporters, Islamists, Christian missionaries, and members of minority groups—anyone thought to pose a threat to the secular order" (Dexter Filkins); the "shady nexus" between the police and intelligence services, "certain politicians and organized crime", whose members believe they are authorized "to get up to all sorts of unavowable things" because they are "custodians of the higher interests of the nation" (Hugh Roberts).
Middle East
Robert Worth argues the term "deep state" is "just as apt" for networks in many other states in the region other than Turkey where governments have colluded with: smugglers and jihadis (Syria), jihadi veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War (Yemen), and other criminals working as irregular forces (Egypt, Algeria); the "hard core" of regimes in Syria, Egypt and Yemen (who resemble the Mamluks of Egypt and the Levant 1250–1517 in that they proclaim themselves servants of the putative rulers while actually ruling themselves) that staged successful counter-revolutions against the Arab Spring in those countries, (Jean-Pierre Filiu, From Deep State to Islamic State).
Egypt
used to refer to Egyptian military/security networks, particularly the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces after the 2011 Revolution. They are "non-democratic leaders within a country" whose power is "independent of any political changes that take place." They are "often hidden beneath layers of bureaucracy" and may not "in complete control at all times" but have "tangible control of key resources (whether human or financial)".
Historical
Charles Tilly wrote of an "interdependence between the historical processes of war-making and state-making and organized crime. 'Banditry, piracy, gangland rivalry, policing and war-making all belong on the same continuum'"