Category: Turkey

Financial Statecraft and its Limits in the Semi-Periphery

karasgdavidLeave a comment

Over the past decade, two, intertwined research agendas on (IFS) and (SF) have proposed to identify how an increasingly finance-dominated global capitalism incorporates the (Semi-)Peripheries.

The IFS research agenda recognizes that a 鈥渟ubordinate鈥� national currency comes with a risk premium increasing the costs of financing public debt 鈥� in other words, the current, US dollar-based currency hierarchy acts as a structural fiscal constraint in the Global South, limiting the scope for badly needed public investments. Foreign capital 鈥� in the form of foreign currency-denominated sovereign and private debt-, foreign aid, and foreign direct investment – is then to this artificial and unfair developmental constraint.

The SF agenda examines how this straightjacket on fiscal space has been further compounded with the liberalization of global capital mobility over the past forty years, diffusing credit-based accumulation strategies from the Core to the Peripheries: from socially and environmentally vital public goods and transformative industrial policies towards developmentally regressive strategies of accumulation driven by speculation and asset-price inflation.

Programmatic visions for liberating (semi-) peripheral economies from the dual constraints of a national fiscal space suffocated by the global currency hierarchy and globally mobile capital flows which deepen financialization are underdeveloped. Two scales of action are plausible: At the international level, , but it remains uncertain what forms of international financial solidarity and collaboration, if any, will materialize under its aegis. The national level comprises an alternative scale as the State continues to be perceived as the most likely candidate for ringfencing domestic social, environmental, and developmental objectives from the pressures of global capital mobility and the structural constraints of the global currency hierarchy.

In a with P谋nar E. 顿枚苍尘别锄, we study the politics governing the management of money in Hungary and Turkey, two semi-peripheral economies where the executive has built a vast array of direct and indirect tools to intervene in monetary policy, retail banking and credit allocation to manage financial subordination.

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The Struggle for Development

benjaminselwynLeave a comment

This post is adapted from the preface for the newly published of The Struggle for Development, . The original edition aimed to root development thinking and practice in the analysis of class relations, and intellectual and political support for labouring class struggles. Turkey is experiencing numerous social struggles that illuminate the relevance of the arguments in this book. It is my hope that this book contributes to illuminating the social, developmental, value of these struggles.

Collective struggles by labouring class communities 鈥� in and beyond the workplace 鈥� have the capacity to generate real human developmental gains for these communities. Consequently, these struggles and the labouring classes that pursue them, should be considered as developmental.  

The majority of development thinking across the political spectrum 鈥� whether theoretically or policy focussed 鈥� tends to downplay labouring classes, their struggles and the gains they generate.  Rather, such struggles are usually ignored or are portrayed as obstacles to development, because they do not adhere to dominant capitalist notions of development. 

Capitalist notions and strategies of development take many forms, and can be thought of as existing along a spectrum 鈥� from more market-led/neoliberal, to more state-directed forms. In this book I argue that, despite notable differences, these forms of development represent varieties of capital-centred development. Here capital accumulation is prioritised as the basis of economic and human development. As I show in this book, both market led and state led forms of development are based upon the assumption that labouring classes represent an objective input into the development process, rather than a subjective agent of development. This assumption legitimates labour exploitation and repression for the greater 鈥榞ood鈥� of capital accumulation.  

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Social Reproduction and Production in Capitalist Society: A Comprehensive Relational Approach

ay艧e arslanLeave a comment

Although social reproductive work has historically been associated with women in different modes of production, with the spatial separation of reproduction from production in industrial capitalist society, women were further associated with the domestic sphere and reproductive work. The burden of reproductive work on women has increased even more in the last four decades as a result of neoliberal policies. Neoliberalism, which is characterised by the increasing privatisation of social reproduction and worsening labour conditions, has forced more women to accept low-paying, informal jobs while at the same time performing an increased amount of reproductive work in their families due to significant cuts in social welfare provisions.

Today, the COVID-19 pandemic has once again shown the great importance of social reproduction to international and national political economies, and the destructive effects of neoliberalism on lives on a global level. Thus, in both the academic and political arenas, we need once again to underline the centrality of social reproduction and women鈥檚 unpaid reproductive labour to society and capitalist production.

In my , I suggest a methodological-analytical approach to understand the relations of production and social reproduction: a comprehensive and relational approach that locates these social relations in their historical and geographical context and within the everyday.

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Debating 鈥楽tate Capitalism鈥� in Turkey: Beyond False Dichotomies

mehmetermanerol3 Comments

Following the 2016 failed coup attempt, and in the context of increasing mistrust towards the West, Turkey鈥檚 president Erdogan reflected his discontent with the EU and argued that , namely the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) led primarily by China and Russia. Soon after, despite being a NATO member, to buy the S-400 air defence missile system. Taken together with Turkey鈥檚 other 鈥榓dventures鈥� in its region, these developments were perceived as manifestations of a changing political economy of Turkey, and were deeply disturbing to Western powers. After all, since the end of the Second World War, Turkey had been a close ally of the US-led Western capitalist bloc, it continued to be one during the Cold War; and had remained very close to US and EU interests following the end of the Cold War in 1991.

For some accounts[i], these developments are related to the changing world order and global power shifts following the 2008 crisis, as the decline of the 鈥榣iberal international order鈥� and the rise of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) marked transformations of the global political economy. Hence, there is a tendency to explain Turkey鈥檚 late political economy in this context. It is argued that, in this 鈥榩ost-liberal international order鈥� where two competing political economies come to the fore, Turkey is moving towards the 鈥楨ast鈥� or 鈥榥on-West鈥� – mainly China and Russia. As such, Turkey鈥檚 engagement with non-Western 鈥榞reat powers鈥� (which are generally characterised by 鈥榓uthoritarian state capitalism鈥� as opposed to the 鈥榥eoliberal political economy鈥�/liberal democracy/鈥檇emocratic capitalism鈥� of the West), shapes Turkey鈥檚 political economy and paves the way for 鈥榓uthoritarianism鈥�, 鈥榠lliberal democracy鈥� and 鈥榮tate capitalism鈥�. Put differently, as the legitimacy crisis of 鈥榃estern neoliberalism鈥� makes it less desirable for countries like Turkey, Turkey is regarded to have deviated from neoliberalism and liberal democracy and moved to state capitalism and authoritarianism.

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