Global Crisis, National Responses: The Political Economy of Turkish Exceptionalism

With its dilatory and piecemeal fiscal activism and uncharacteristic reluctance toward IMF assistance, the Turkish government’s response to the global economic crisis of 2008-2009 sharply contrasted the bold approaches adopted by other major emerging market countries. Underlying this policy exceptionalism were the constraints posed by Turkey’s pre-existing policy and macroeconomic constraints, cognitive failures on the part of policymakers, and the conjunctural dynamics of domestic politics. The interplay of these factors progressively narrowed the policy space for vigorous action, leading instead to a motley combination of reactive initiatives that neither offered sufficient protection to the most vulnerable social groups during the crisis nor promised sustainable growth in the long run.global economic crisis, fiscal stimulus, IMF, emerging markets, Turkey

The World Bank and emerging powers: beyond the multipolarity-multilateralism conundrum

The discrepancy between the increasingly multipolar world economy of the recent decades and the stubbornly limited representativeness of the organisations mandated with its governance causes much strain in global politics. Some scholars suggest that this chronic mismatch will undermine existing multilateral bodies, while others expect the present architecture to persist. This article contends that the outcomes of this challenge are institution-specific. In settings where significant operational realignments are possible within existing mandates and governance structures, the multipolarity-multilateralism conundrum could be partly mitigated. The argument is based on a thematic analysis of all IBRD-IDA loan commitments between 2002 and 2015 in the World Bank’s seven all-time top borrowers: Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and Turkey (collectively, the Big Seven). The key finding is that while these emerging countries remain the Bank’s biggest clients, the terms of their engagement have shifted precisely along the lines where they had already differed from the rest of the Bank’s clientele: away from politically onerous governance and institutional reforms, and towards developing physical and market infrastructure while attaining social sustainability. This implicit realignment is facilitated by the Bank’s diverse policy repertoire, which allows considerable inter-regional and intra-regional variation in lending patterns to accommodate member preferences

The political economy of Turkish democracy

Political economists often observe a positive long-term correlation between economic and political development. The Turkish case is no exception in that policy strategies, distributive preferences and wider institutional arrangements in much of the country’s multiparty history have displayed a congruous path, producing continuous growth and democratic progress despite short-lived economic crises and political breakdowns. The current period of relative economic stagnation and democratic backpedalling is therefore unusual. The analysis presented here argues that this democratic relapse is tightly entwined with Turkey’s deepening middle-income trap. Among the main factors underlying this synchronous fall in economic and political fortunes are highly problematic state-business relations, clientelistic patterns of articulating popular interests, and dramatic institutional degeneration over the past decade undermining both narrow and broad institutions

Political economy

This chapter highlights the interplay of policy regimes, external forces, institutions and crises in the evolution of Turkish political economy. Following a brief overview of Turkey’s state-led development strategy in the 1950s and 1960s and efforts at liberalization in the 1980s and 1990s, the chapter focuses on the post-2002 AKP period. Initial successes during this period proved unsustainable and Turkey, once branded a leading emerging power, has over the past decade experienced intensified foreign capital-dependence, sluggish growth, institutional degeneration and recently severe macroeconomic instability. With the AKP’s authoritarian brand of neoliberal populism firmly entrenched, Turkey’s long-term development prospects in an ever more challenging global economic context remain bleak

Whither the Post-Washington consensus? international financial institutions and development policy before and after the crisis

This article explores the direction, drivers and implications of change in the IMF and the World Bank’s policy vision for developing countries before and after the global crisis. By examining the evolution of the Fund’s structural conditionalities and the thematic distribution of Bank commitments, it provides evidence for a significant change on the ground: a partial retreat from the post-Washington Consensus (PWC) agenda, which marked a turn-of-the-century upgrade of orthodox neoliberalism. Conceptualising the PWC as a paradigm expansion that followed severe policy failures, the analysis finds that although narrow institutional reforms towards upgrading fiscal and financial regimes remain popular, the good governance and broad institutions dimension of the agenda has recorded a notable decline since the crisis; meanwhile in social policy the twins increasingly diverge. It is argued that this selective disengagement is driven by extant operational imperatives and constraints, which are further intensified by changes in lending framework and the ongoing transformations in development finance. Rather than constitute a shift in policy paradigm, the partial decline of the PWC reflects an adjustment in policy practice towards greater flexibility and discretion in the challenging environment facing the twins. These findings have implications for the study of the Fund and Bank; they also highlight the evolving parameters of North-South development cooperation

IMF, Dünya Bankası ve Küresel Kriz: Yeni Dengeler, Eski Yönelimler

Book synopsis: Uluslararası ekonomik ve siyasal sistem bir geçiş döneminde. 2008’de başlayan ve tüm Batı ülkelerini etkisi altına alan ekonomik kriz, bu geçiş dönemini hem hızlandırdı hem de paradigma değiştirici bir kırılma noktası oldu. Krizi önemli kılan da esas bu. Ülke Deneyimleri Işığında Küresel Kriz ve Yeni Ekonomik Düzen, bu krizin bütün boyutlarıyla anlaşılmasını amaçlıyor. Kriz öncesi dönemi, krizin etkilerini, alınan ve alınamayan önlemleri, kriz sonrası senaryoları inceliyor. Değişen güç dengelerine ışık tutuyor. Aralarında Türkiye’nin de yer aldığı “yükselen piyasalar”a ilişkin ayrıntılı ülke araştırmalarına yer veriyor. 21. yüzyılın ilk küresel krizinin taşıdığı değişim dinamiklerini ve bunların önündeki engelleri kavramak isteyen herkesi ilgilendiren bir temel kitap..

Reinventing the left in the global south: the politics of the possible (Richard Sandbrook)

Review of Reinventing the Left in the Global South: The Politics of the Possible by Richard Sandbrook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 299pp., £19.99, ISBN 9781107421097

Introduction: Envisioning a civilized globalization

Book synopsis: Is it possible to harness the benefits of economic globalization without sacrificing social equity, ecological sustainability, and democratic governance? The first edition of Civilizing Globalization (2003) explored this question at a time of widespread popular discontent. This fully revised and expanded edition comes at an equally crucial juncture. The period of relative stability and prosperity in the world economy that followed the release of the first edition ended abruptly in 2008 with a worldwide economic crisis that illustrated in dramatic fashion the enduring problems with our global order. Yet despite the gravity of the challenges, concrete initiatives for change remain insubstantial. Richard Sandbrook and Ali Burak Güven bring together international scholars and veteran activists to discuss in clear, nontechnical language the innovative political strategies, participatory institutional frameworks, and feasible regulatory designs capable of taming global markets so that they assume the role of useful servants rather than tyrannical masters