The Acceleration of Privatization: Understanding State, Power Bloc, and Capital Accumulation in Turkey

Abstract

This article seeks to explain the post-2001 acceleration of privatization in Turkey. Employing a Marxian analytical framework, the article argues that the acceleration of privatization in Turkey in the post-2001 period was the result of a powerful combination of support from the power bloc (i.e., fractions of capital) in Turkey, which has been achieved with a major subordination of labor. The power bloc saw previously unavailable advantages in supporting privatization within the context of the post-2001 domestic capital accumulation regime, and therefore acted to restructure the legal and institutional framework of the state to weaken the resistance of labor and facilitate the participation of potential investors in privatization tenders. This interpretation challenges the dominance of institutionalist accounts, which draw on the legal-institutional framework and/or national interest-based discourses without considering how the changing relations among different fractions of capital and between capital and labor within the constitutive dynamics of domestic capital accumulation exerted significant influence on the acceleration of privatization. JEL Classification: P160; F50