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Tolga Tören This article is part of a special series on current challenges in the world of work, developed from a workshop held at the University of Kassel in September 2025 by alumni, associates and friends of the Global Labour University. Authoritarianism in Turkey has become more visible by the day, proving wrong the expectations harboured by international institutions at the start of the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) rule — namely, that the party would steer the country towards liberal democracy under the banner of moderate Islamism. Recent developments instead call to mind what Nicos Poulantzas wrote in  Fascism and Dictatorship  about the exceptional state: ‘Law no longer regulates: arbitrariness reigns’ (Poulantzas, 2018: 297).