The Re‐making of the Turkish Crisis

Abstract

By the end of 2018 Turkey had entered a new economic crisis and a lengthy recession period. In contrast to the previous financial crises of 1994, 2001 and 2009, when the economy shrank abruptly with a spectacular collapse of asset values and a severe contraction of output, the 2018 economic crisis was characterized by a prolonged recession with persistent low (negative) rates of growth, dwindling investment performance, debt repayment problems, secularly rising unemployment, spiralling currency depreciation and high inflation. The mainstream approach attributes this dismal performance to a lack of 'structural reforms' and/or exogenous policy factors. However, this analysis shows that the underlying sources of the crisis are to be found not in the conjunctural cycles of reform fatigue, but rather in the post-2001, neoliberal, speculation-led growth model that relied excessively on hot-money inflows and external debt accumulation. This article argues that following the post-2001 orthodox reforms, a foreign capital inflow-dependent, debtled and construction-centred economic growth model dominated the economy and caused a long build-up of imbalances and increased fragilities that led to the 2018 crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020-21 further exposed these fragilities, pushing the economy back into a recession with rapid capital outflows causing another round of sharp currency depreciation. 2. 'Justice and Development Party' is the English translation of Turkey's Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP), founded in 2001 and in power continuously since the end of 2002. For historical reviews of the rise of the AKP see, for example, Esen and Gümüşçü (2016); Yeldan and Ünüvar (2016); Yılmaz and Bashirov (2018). 3. This model has variously been characterized as dependent financialization (Akçay and Güngen, 2019), deficit-led neoliberal populism (Güven, 2016), or a mix of neoliberal developmentalism and authoritarian populism (Adaman et al., 2019).

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“…Examples include democratically elected governments in several Latin American countries that adopted fiscal populism, such as Chile from 1970 to 1973, Peru from 1985 to 1990, and Argentina from 2003 to 2015 (Dornbusch & Edwards, 1990;Edwards, 2019;Devinney & Hartwell, 2020). A similar phenomenon occurred in the recent crises in Sri Lanka (Abeysinghe, 2021) and Turkey (Orhangazi & Yeldan, 2021).…”

Ruşen Keleş’in Birikiminden Geleceğe: Türkiye’de ve Dünyada Kentleşme ve Yerel Yönetimlere Dair Dönüşümleri Okumak

“…Yine de yukarıda anılan dönüşüm sürecinin ürettiği ayrışma ve farklılaşmaları kesen bazı yeni ortaklaşmaların zemin ve olanakları da ortaya çıkardığını gözden kaçırmamak gerekir. Bu gelişmeleri şöyle sıralayabiliriz: a) Özellikle metropolleşmenin getirmiş olduğu kozmopolitleşme ile kentsel yaşam standartlarını sürdürme zorunluluğunun birey ve topluluklar üzerinde yarattığı sekülerleşme baskısı; b) Kentleşmenin doygunluğa ulaşması ile birlikte kentte doğan ve doğrudan kent kültürü içinde büyüyen nüfusun giderek toplam nüfus içinde ağırlığının artmaya başlaması (ki Z Kuşağı tartışmalarının ön plana çıkmasının bununla yakında ilgili olduğu öne sürülebilir); c) İnternet ve sosyal medyanın yaygınlaşmasıyla birlikte muktedirlerin bilgi/haberlerin akışı üzerindeki denetimini kaybetmesi ve kentsel politikadaki karar süreçlerinin kaçınılmaz olarak kamuoyu denetimine açılması; d) Yine aynı nedenden ötürü, ağ temelli topluluklar üzerinden (siyasi) örgütlenme ve eyleme geçmenin kolaylaşması (Çaycı ve Karagülle, 2014); e) Yerel yönetimlerin vatandaşın refahını sağlama ve kamusal kaynakları bölüştürme konusunda neredeyse merkezi yönetim kadar öne çıkması ve bu arada artan siyasal kutuplaşma ve sosyal adaletsizliklerin, toplumun siyasal ilgisini yerel yönetimler ve siyasetçilerin üzerinde (özellikle belediye başkanları üzerinden) toplaması (Köse, 2021) (örneğin youtube üzerinden yayınlanan belediye ihalelerinin yüz binlerce izleyiciye kavuşması veyahut büyük metropollerin belediye başkanlarının Cumhurbaşkanlığı seçimlerinde başat adaylar haline gelmesi); f) On yıllara yayılan ve kentsel rantı tetikleyerek sürdürülen bir kentleşme ve ulusal kalkınma stratejisinin (diğer bir deyişle beton ekonomisinin) durma noktasına gelmesi (Orhangazi ve Yeldan, 2021).…”

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“…In parallel to an expanding volume of research, the article argues that postcrisis capital inflows sourced a debt-led, financialized economic growth model in Turkey. 11 In this model, economic growth heavily depended on foreign capital inflows and external debt accumulation and accompanied chronic, large current account deficits. Although a strong relationship between capital flows and economic growth has been a characteristic of the Turkish economy after its financial liberalization, the postcrisis surge in private capital inflows deepened Turkey's reliance on external financing because both financialized economic growth and the stability of financial and nonfinancial sectors increasingly came to depend on the continuous flow of private capital.…”