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

Extractivism and Labour Control: Reflections of Turkey’s ‘Coal Rush’ in Local Labour Regimes

“…However, they faced strong impediments such as legal and institutional constraints, opposition within the parliament or government, and popular resistance from different segments of the society, including certain fractions of big capital (Angın and Bedirhanoğlu, 2012; Öniş, 2011; Zaifer, 2020). Large-scale privatizations in Turkey correspond to the AKP governments and since the early 2000s, privatizations have been central for the accumulation strategies of all fractions of the power bloc (Zaifer, 2018: 819). Despite the tension between the AKP and big capital groups whose class formation date back the Early Republican era, they both supported and benefited from the large-scale privatizations during the AKP governments.…”

“… 2. Fractions of power bloc in Turkey are (i) big bourgeoisie whose class formation dates to the early Republican Period; (ii) Anatolian bourgeoisie who were supported actively by the AKP government and established conglomerates since the early 2000s; (iii) foreign capital (cf: Zaifer 2018). …”

Turkish Experience with Divestiture between 2010 and 2019: A Comparative Historical Evaluation

“…For that purpose, the existing literature can be categorized into three groups. One group of scholars analyzed Turkey's experience with privatization boom in the 2000s in the aftermath of a prolonged phase of slow privatization during the 1990s (see Atiyas 2009;Şahin 2010;Oniş 2011;Angın and Bedirhanoğlu 2012;Zaifer 2018). As such, these scholars focused on the divestiture of major and large-scale stateowned enterprises such as Tüpraş (petroleum refining), Petkim (petrochemical), Tekel (alcohol and tobacco products), Türk Telekom (telecommunication), Erdemir (iron and steel) in the 2000s.…”