Why do states criminalize boycotts? Because it hurts.
In Turkey, a consumer boycott led by the opposition is being treated as a threat to national security. We've seen similar reactions in other undemocratic states.
One of the basic insights of social movement theory is that meaningful political and social transformation often comes from actors excluded from formal institutional channels. Rather than working through official avenues, these actors deploy extra-institutional tactics—disruptive, subversive, and confrontational—to challenge authority and amplify grievances from the margins. They protest, they march, they occupy space. And they boycott.
Boycotts are disruptive by design. They strike in two places: the balance sheet and the brand image. In markets where identity is monetized, where logos are laden with meaning, a dent in reputation becomes a dent in pockets. The two effects feed each other: yani, market disruption draws attention; then attention intensifies market disruption.
Turkey's ongoing boycott campaign made this dynamic painfully clear. After Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, was arrested, the main opposition party CHP called for a consumer boycott of pro-government media and businesses. CHP leader Özgür Özel cast it as a campaign of nonviolent resistance. The state called it sabotage. Prosecutors launched investigations detaining 10 people. Actress Aybüke Pusat and her boyfriend lost their jobs at TRT for voicing support. Then the TV series of a screenwriter who supported the actress was also canceled. Then the CHP’s website listing the brands to be boycotted was taken down. The deputy president, the minister of trade, the minister of justice, and the AKP spokesperson all ran to pro-government media, weaving a story that boycotts were part of a plot. Mashallah, look at the Turkish state being extremely efficient!
Today, a series of investigations are ongoing against those who called for boycotts. Since boycotts are protected under the Turkish constitution—and even Erdoğan, just a few months ago, encouraged people to boycott brands that drastically raised prices—the accusation used to justify this morning’s detention of 16 people was: “inciting hatred and animosity among society.”
This isn’t an isolated reaction; it is part of the repertoire of authoritarian regimes to push back against contentious politics. Remember: in Myanmar, boycotting military-owned businesses after the 2021 coup was treated as insurgency. In India, boycott calls tied to protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act were met with sedition charges and digital repression. Iran has detained activists and shut down platforms used to organize consumer boycotts during inflation-driven unrest.
And then there are the liberal democracies. Countries that trumpet free speech—until it threatens the wrong interests. The BDS movement—nonviolent, global, inspired by the anti-apartheid struggle—has faced legal bans, censorship, and smear campaigns across the U.S., France, and Germany. In 2016, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo bypassed the legislature entirely and issued an executive order blacklisting groups that support BDS. Critics cried foul—what about the First Amendment?1 The State Department quietly affirmed that the right to boycott is protected. But the chill had already set in.
The UK followed suit. Under the Sunak government, a bill was introduced banning public bodies from engaging in any boycott or divestment campaign against foreign states. Read Israel. Ministers were given investigative powers; hefty fines were written in. Michael Gove, then Secretary of State, said the bill would prevent community tensions and rising antisemitism. (How banning BDS would curb antisemitism is a confusion I can’t quite wrap my head around; if anything, it risks fueling further backlash. But I’ll leave that aside for now.)
In the U.S., the terrain looked a bit different but echoed the same fear. On February 28, 2025, a nationwide “economic blackout” took place—a 24-hour spending strike against big corporations rolling back Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives under Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE). Organized by the People’s Union USA, it targeted Amazon, Target, Meta, and X. It flooded social media. Whether it moved markets is beside the point. It reminded people of their agency—and that’s a very important thing to keep in mind: there is power in people.
States consider boycotts dangerous because they turn consumption into a political act. They test the state’s tolerance and often find its limits. But more importantly, when a boycott takes off, it stops being about shopping. It becomes a referendum. On power. On legitimacy. On who gets to decide what matters.
Political consumerism is the shape that civic resistance increasingly takes nowadays. It’s driven by the “futureless youth” of our time: educated, skeptical of traditional institutions, often female, and unwilling to wait their turn in broken systems.2 They protest with their purchases, organize without parties, vote without ballots. Not because they think it’s the most effective strategy—but because it’s one they can own.
And the state—authoritarian or democratic—knows this. That’s why it steps in when you stop buying.
Explaining Turkey’s Authoritarian Turn
Since the arrest of Istanbul’s mayor—marking a new level of authoritarianism in Turkey—I’ve done my best to explain what’s happening through various platforms. Here are the links to those pieces:
**I spoke to Davide Lerner for the Italian newspaper Domani about boycotting and the politically diverse crowds behind the protests.
**When you look at Turkey and ask why Erdoğan’s regime chose to jail a political opponent now, the answer lies in a climate of impunity — as I argued in Prospect Magazine.
**I spoke with Amy Goodman, the anchor and force behind one of the few remaining shows committed to rigorous reporting , Democracy Now!
**I joined Al Jazeera English Newshour to unpack the latest from Turkey. I argued that the govt crossed a red line undermining a democratic practice that Turkish society holds sacred - the ballot box. Now what remains of the so-called “Turkish model” once marketed to the Arab world is authoritarianism dressed in neoliberal-conservative robes.
**I spoke with Alexia Kalaitzi of the Greek newspaper Kathimerini about the prospects for protest and the aims of the opposition.
Dalal Hillou, “Criminalizing Nonviolent Dissent: New York's Unconstitutional Repression of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Movement,” American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law 25, no. 4 (2017): Article 5.
Dietlind Stolle, Marc Hooghe, and Michele Micheletti, “Politics in the Supermarket: Political Consumerism as a Form of Political Participation,” International Political Science Review 26, no. 3 (July 2005): 245–69.
The criminalisation of boycotts also shows fear on the part of autocrats. They know the power that galvanised people have. Countless regimes have been brought down by mere people.
Very persuasively argued, and glad you included tech boycotts as well!
One small addition on the UK bill - you write: "The UK followed suit. Under the Sunak government, a bill was introduced banning public bodies from engaging in any boycott or divestment campaign against foreign states. Read Israel."
The UK anti-boycott bill was even weirder than that. It was not just implicitly about Israel: The bill allowed government ministers to make exceptions allowing public bodies to divest from companies complicit in states human rights abuses. However, there was a special exception in the bill for Israel, and Israel only.