The incomplete transformation of institutions of economic policy: from clientelism to competition?

Economic policy in Turkey has gone through significant amount of transformation in the last three decades. While Turkey used to be a closed economy governed by an import-substitution industrialization strategy, starting in the early 1980s it went through substantial liberalization and privatization, and the market mechanism has gained increased importance in the allocation o

Experiencing awkwardness: the functional liminality of artefacts and spaces

The purpose of the paper is to explore experience economy events from an interpetivist perspective. The empirical part of the study is narrative-based and founded on the selfreflective anthropologic inquiry method. This study sets out to propose that the awkwardnes and setback experienced by the client, customer or visitor, may generate his/her agency to try to disambiguate the situational liminality and establish a more clear-cut construction of the experiential framework. However, if attempted the disambiguation demands significant emotional and, sometimes, physical labour, typically not undertaken willingly, and usually resulting in the subject's avoidance of exposure to similar experiences in future. Beyond the scope of many recent approaches this paper re-focuses the critical edge of inquiry away from agency-reducing aspects of experience economy, towards reflecting on their enforced, if not deliberate, agency-inducing consequences

Half glass empty? politics & institutions in the liberalization of the fixed line telecommunications industry in Turkey

This chapter reviews Turkish experience with reform of the fixed line telecommunications industry. It provides an account of earlier incoherent attempts to privatize the incumbent operator in the absence of any regulatory framework or political consensus. It also describes the regulatory framework emerged in early 2000s and discusses the various political-economic and institutional factors behind its weak implementation, and hence its limited success in promoting competition

Managing carnival: translating the translation into monologue in a bureaucratic institutional framework

In this study two strands of theoretical reflection will contribute to the framework for the analysis of empirical narrative-based material. Research is focused on exploring the reality-framing aspects of the work of translators in a highly centralized, bureaucratic international institution through: approaching their workplace activity via theoretical insights regarding the nature of translation (1); exploring the experiential framework of their professional [and to some extent private] life (2); and analyzing the materiality of the workplace itself to gain insight into the networked processes (3). These research paths will be informed by Derridian and Benjaminian insights into the philosophy of translation; existent literature on emotional labour, sanitization and carnival; and sociomaterial analysis, respectively. The above framework will enable to critically explore the qualitative data gathered for this study and offer a reconceptualization of translation as a heterogonous notion encompassing multiple practices underpinned by potentially incommensurable set of assumptions including the nature of communication and social interaction

When good intentions are not enough: sequential entry and competition in the Turkish mobile industry

A decade into the liberalization of the Turkish mobile industry, the sector remains one of the most concentrated in Europe. In this paper we analyze the links between the regulatory environment and competitive outcomes in the Turkish context. We argue that seven years of duopoly incumbency resulted in a significant first-mover advantage. We then focus on the role of the regulatory tools that could potentially restrain the incumbent operators’ first-mover advantage and stimulate competition: national roaming, interconnection regulation, and number portability

Glass half empty? politics and institutions in the liberalization of the fixed line telecommunications industry in Turkey

This chapter reviews Turkish experience with reform of the fixed line telecommunications industry. It provides an account of earlier incoherent attempts to privatize the incumbent operator in the absence of any regulatory framework or political consensus. It also describes the regulatory framework emerged in early 2000s and discusses the various political-economic and institutional factors behind its weak implementation, and hence its limited success in promoting competition