Description
Since 2018, the dynamics of Turkish political economy have been marked by significant economic challenges, including currency crises, the impact of the Covid pandemic, and runaway inflation, along with increased geopolitical tensions and conflicts. Concomitantly, the economic and monetary policymaking experienced several sharp oscillations within the stimulus/pro-growth and the contraction/stability pendulum during this period. A key turning point has been a far more visible shift towards orthodox economic management in the aftermath of the May 2023 general elections, arguably a major factor of bringing a swift defeat of the governing AKP in local elections in March 2024. How can we explain these zigzags that have taken place within a short time span? Why would a government abandon a politically successful accumulation strategy which led to its 2023 election victory? Conventional perspectives on Turkish political economy have strived to explain this period and political-economic shifts largely with reference to the domestic political dynamics. Where the global political economy dynamics are considered, conventional IPE versions of ‘authoritarian state capitalism’ analysis were reproduced within the Turkish context. The paper critically engages with these conventional approaches to Turkish political economy, highlighting their limitations in explaining Turkey’s recent economic and political shifts. It proposes instead a critical IPE approach, drawing broadly on a non-reductionist 'open Marxist' perspective, which positions the oscillations and inconsistencies outlined above within a broader contested ‘politics of governing alienation’ (Copley and Moraitis 2021) at the intersection of domestic political dynamics and global capitalist social relations (i.e. tensions between domestic legitimacy and competitive world market dynamics). While sustaining a class-analytical perspective, this perspective develops a critique of state-centric perspectives operating through false dichotomies.
