Rethinking Agricultural Policy in Turkey: International Context and Domestic Developments

Abstract

The aim of this study is to provide a broad conceptual and historical outline of how rural development policies have been determined through technocratic policies in economic and political terms rather than participatory and transparent decision making processes. Given that the state and managerial expert groups have been the main architects of rural development and agricultural policies along with suprastate organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank, this study offers in-depth coverage of policy variations in two different cases: State-led planned economy and free market economy. This study seeks to assert that just as under the state-led economy model, the free market economy and technocratic policies in coordination with the IMF and the World Bank blocked mass mobilization and genuine democratic participation in the Turkish countryside. Neither the neoliberal and individualist nor the statist and corporatist perspectives were able to come to terms with the idea of a representative and transparent approach to policy-making processes in Turkey.