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This volume provides a comprehensive study of Turkey's financial transformation into one of the most dynamic, if not trouble-free, emerging capitalisms. While this financial evolution has underwritten Turkey's dramatic economic growth, it has done so without ameliorating the persistently exploitative and unequal social structures that characterize neoliberalism today. This edited volume, written by an interdisciplinary range of political economists, critically examines Turkey's financial transformation, contributing to debates on the nature of peripheral financialization.
Eschewing economistic interpretations, The Political Economy of Financial Transformation in Turkey underscores both the quantitative significance of exponential growth in financial flows and investments, and the qualitative importance of the state's institutional restructuring around financial imperatives. The book presents today's reality as historically rooted. By understanding the choices made under the new Republic (from 1923 onwards), one can better locate the changes launched as a newly liberalizing society (since 1980). Likewise, the decisions made in response to Turkey's 2001 financial crisis spurred a tectonic break in state-market-society financial relations. The waves of change have reached far and wide: from corporate strategies of accumulation and growth to small- and medium-sized enterprises' strategies of financial survival; from how finance has penetrated the provisioning of housing to how households have become financialized. Put together, one grasps the complexity and historicity of the power of contemporary finance. One also sees that the changes made have not been class-neutral, but have entailed elevating the interests of major capital groups, particularly financial capital, above the interests of the poor and workers in Turkey. Nor are these changes constrained to its national borders, as what transpires domestically contributes to the making of a financialized world market. Through this 'Made in Turkey' approach the contributions in this volume thus challenge dominant understandings of financialization, which are derived from the advanced capitalisms, by sharing the specificity of emerging capitalisms such as Turkey.
List of contents
Foreword - Oktar Türel
The Editors and Contributors
Abbreviations
1 Introduction: Debating Financial Transformation in Turkey
Galip L. Yalman, Thomas Marois and Ali Riza Güngen
2 Putting the Turkish Financial System into Historical Perspective 1923-1980
Galip L. Yalman
3 The Neoliberal Transformation of State and Market in Turkey: An Overview of Financial Developments from 1980 to 2000
Galip L. Yalman
4 A Tale of Three Crises Made in Turkey: 1994, 2001 and 2008-09
Hasan Cömert and Erinç Yeldan
5 The Transformation of the State Financial Apparatus in Turkey since 2001
Thomas Marois
6 The Neoliberal Restructuring of Banking in Turkey, 2001 to the Present
Thomas Marois and Ali Riza Güngen
7 The Neoliberal Emergence of Market Finance in Turkey
Ali Riza Güngen
8 The Turkish Corporate Sector in the Era of Financialization: Profitability and M&As
Demir Demiröz and Nilgün Erdem
9 The State, Crisis, and Transformation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Finance in Turkey
Aylin Topal
10 Financial Transformation and Housing Finance in Turkey
Isil Erol
11 Restricted but Significant: Financialization of Households and Retail Banking Activities in Turkey
Ipek Eren Vural
About the author
Galip L. Yalman is an Associate Professor (retired) of Political Science in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. His research interests extend from state theory, to international and comparative political economy. He is the President of Turkish Social Sciences Association.
Thomas Marois is a Senior Lecturer of Development Studies at SOAS University of London, United Kingdom, who specializes in finance and development in emerging capitalist societies. His current research focuses on the resurgence of public banks and their potential to support alternative green and equitable development strategies.
Ali Rıza Güngen is a political scientist and independent researcher, who received his PhD from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey and was granted the Young Social Scientist award by the Turkish Social Sciences Association in 2013. His research currently focuses on sovereign debt management across the global South, and state restructuring and financial inclusion in Turkey.
Summary
A comprehensive study of the historical and contemporary changes in banking, finance and development in Turkey, with analysis of the impact of the global financial crisis and a critical account of how neoliberal financial transformation has been consolidated in Turkey.
