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The end of the “securitarian regime” in Turkey, which has been dominated by the army since the early 1980s, raises questions about the conditions for political change and how these can be sociologically understood. From this perspective, it is important to look beyond the formal institutional arrangements and tactics for which the Justice and Development Party (AKP) is known to be responsible. Studying the trajectory of migration and border policy reforms over the long term sheds new light on the army’s decreasing influence over government activity, which observers date from the second half of the 2000s. This article reports on the emergence of new bureaucratic coalitions within the state, including police officers, prefects, and European experts. It discusses their ability to anticipate government strategies in reform activities and the impact of these coalitions on the army. More specifically, I demonstrate how the fragmentation of decision-making through expertise in the context of European aid programmes financed by pre-accession policy affects the discreet mobilisation of civil servants in a process of subverting the institutional security order.