Politicized Megaprojects and Public Sector Interventions: Mass Consent Under Neoliberal Statism

Abstract

Scholars have argued that megaprojects’ turn away from issues of employment, and mass housing are among the core traits of neoliberalism. Turkey, though once seen as a paragon of neoliberalism, problematizes this generalization. Erdoğanist megaprojects have created jobs and residence for millions, and garner consent. ‘Embedded neoliberalism’, a concept frequently used to explain increasing state involvement under neoliberalism, sheds light on the governing AKP’s power, but is insufficient in explaining its core dynamics. Whereas the ‘embedded neoliberalism’ literature downplays the role of the government as a producer, the ‘state capitalism’ literature, as applied to Turkey, overrates the extent to which this country has moved away from neoliberalism. The concept ‘neoliberal statism’ (which puts the emphasis on the consent-generating and political aspects of the new economy) better captures the AKP’s path. Megaproject-driven growth and popular consent, however, are restricted by vulnerabilities that also afflict neoliberal statism as a broader growth strategy.

The Political Economic Sources of Policy Non-design, Policy Accumulation, and Decay in Policy Capacity

“…The interactions between these two actors took a clientelistic, symbiotic shape through which the incumbent channeled and mobilized public resources toward its economic constituency through concessions on public land, favoritism in public procurement, targeted privatization, or contracting out public service delivery (Bugra & Savaskan, 2014;Ercan & Oguz, 2006;Gurakar, 2016;Tuğal, 2022;Yagci, 2021). Moreover, policy and instrument choices also overlap over low interest rates and loose bank regulatory standards (Apaydin & Coban, 2022b): NFCs prefer low interest rates and loose bank regulatory standards to have cheap and easy access to bank credit because this ensures enabling household demand for housing and other goods and products through cheaper access to credit, and it facilitates investments and finance for operational costs.…”

“…Professional economists claimed that the CBRT’s release of its reserves reached 128 billion US Dollars, a major share of the reserves which then declined to historically lowest levels, 14 while the net foreign currency reserves of the CBRT declined to the negative territory, 15 and have yet to recover. According to them, the main driver of the depletion of foreign currency reserves was to socialize the foreign currency risk of NFCs (e.g., energy, construction, and retail sectors, the main actors within the growth regime (Bugra & Savaskan, 2014; Tuğal, 2022; Yagci, 2021). This was because the dramatic depreciation of TL had a negative impact on NFCs’ balance sheets given their high foreign currency-denominated debt.…”

Crisis of capitalism and cycles of right‐wing populism in contemporary Turkey: The making and unmaking of Erdoğanist hegemony

“…Historically, the AKP also generated the consent of an important section of the proletarianised masses by offering them employment opportunities in the construction sector and public housing with cheap credit (Tuğal, 2022). The public housing agency, TOKİ, played an important role in this process.…”

“…From its foundation in 1984 to 2002, TOKİ had built 43,145 houses. After the AKP came to power, it built over 1 million housing units, one fifth of which targeted the poor (Tuğal, 2022, p. 10). Until the 2018 currency/debt crisis, the TOKİ‐houses and employment opportunities in the construction sector played a key role in providing popular support.…”

The Authoritarian State Form, Reconfiguration of Power Bloc, and the Growth Model in Turkey in the 21st century

“…In mainstream political science research, the term crony capitalism refers to the system in which "politically connected actors manage to extract economic advantage to their firms, and the consequences of these privileges on economic growth and job creation" (Malik et al 2019: 6) 2. Tuğal (2022) critiques the state capitalism label as an overstatement of the move away from neoliberalism in Turkey and suggests 'neoliberal statism' instead. I consider this term an early attempt to describe the emergent state-capital nexus in the country, but more illuminating than state capitalism.…”