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ABSTRACT
A decade after the global financial turmoil, a new wave of crises is haunting the global South. This pattern is different from previous crisis episodes. Powerful shifts in the international order provide new policy space for emerging powers to manage their economic problems in a heterodox fashion. Key Western-led institutions no longer enjoy a monopoly in dictating the terms of financial assistance for countries in economic difficulty, as non-Western powers increasingly challenge the orthodox Washington Consensus paradigm. The present paper attempts to locate Turkey’s ongoing economic crisis in a comparative-historical context. Its central argument posits that the current crisis is the reflection of a fragile and unconsolidated presidential system and its associated mode of economic governance with state capitalist features. Turkey’s heterodox crisis allows us to draw attention to the complex interplay of global power transitions in a post-liberal international order and domestic political constellations during an era of growing authoritarian populism, generating a new equilibrium with rather unique features.
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank the editor of the Journal and the two referees for their penetrating comments and useful suggestions that helped to improve the paper. We would also like to thank Berk Emre Çelik and Simay Küçükkolbaşı for their valuable assistance.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For more on the relationship between performance legitimacy and regime type see, Foa, “Modernization.”
2 Babb and Chorev, “International Organizations,” 88–91.
3 Babb and Chorev also underline that “the set of policy practices imposed by the Washington Consensus was linked to a powerful and coherent set of policy ideas, legitimated through the expert authority of economists.” Babb and Chorev, “International Organizations,” 89.
4 Acharya, The End of American; Ikenberry, “The End of Liberal”; and Layne, “The US-Chinese Power.”
5 Woods, The Globalizers.
6 Wade, “Emerging World Order.”
7 Güven, “The World Bank.”
8 Cherif and Hasanov, “The Return,” and Harding, “IMF Gives Ground.”
9 Dolfsma and Grosman, “State Capitalism Revisited,” 582, 583.
10 For a recent analysis, Alami and Dixon, “State Capitalisms.”
11 McNally, “Sino-Capitalism,” and “Domestic Structures.”
12 Kutlay, “The Politics,” and Öniş, “Turkey under.”
13 Kutlay, “The Politics,” 688.
14 For an analysis of developmental states, see Wade, “The Developmental State.”
15 Kutlay, “The Politics,” 688.
16 Öniş and Aysan, “Neoliberal Globalisation”; Reinhart and Reinhart, “The Crisis Next Time”; and Stiglitz, Globalization.
17 On the relationship between economic globalisation and populism, see Rodrik, “Populism.”
18 For a recent review on “authoritarian learning,” see Hall and Ambrosio, “Authoritarian Learning.”
19 Wade, “The Developmental State.”
20 Öniş and Kutlay, “Global Shifts.”
21 Foa, “Modernization,” and Mounk and Foa, “The End.”
22 For an analysis of increasing income and wealth inequalities in the global economy, see Milanovic, Capitalism, Alone.
23 Hopkin and Blyth, “The Global Economics,” 195.
24 On potentials and limits of democratic BRICS, see Öniş and Gençer, “Democratic BRICS.”
25 Calvo, “Capital Flows.”
26 Argentina, at least so far, seems to be an exceptional case. The Argentinian government has opted for an “orthodox” path and negotiated a deal with the IMF, involving a loan of $50 billion to stabilize the economy and generate recovery from a major debt crisis.
27 Hunter and Power, “Bolsonaro.”
28 The Economist, “A decade.”
29 On the political economy of crises in Turkey, see Öniş, States and Markets.
30 Öniş and Şenses, “Global Dynamics,” 267–68.
31 Rodrik 1990, “Premature Liberalization,” and Yeldan, “Neoliberal Global.”
32 Bakır and Öniş, “The Regulatory State.”
33 Kutlay, The Political Economies, 71–99, and Öniş and Şenses, Turkey and the Global Economy.
34 Öniş and Keyman, “A New Path.”
35 Öniş, “Turgut Özal and his Economic.”
36 Akcay and Güngen, “The making,” 15.
37 Bloomberg HT, “TBB/Aydın.”
38 Egilmez, “Türkiye.”
39 Öniş and Senses, “Global Dynamics,” 267.
40 Kirkpatrick and Öniş, “Turkey.”
41 Öniş, “Varieties and Crises,” 253.
42 Balta, “The AKP’s Foreign Policy,” 14–18.
43 Hurriyet, “Cumhurbaşkanı.”
44 Bulut, “2023 Türkiye.”
45 Somer, “Understanding Turkey’s.”
46 For further discussion of state capitalism in the Turkish context, see Öniş, “Turkey under.” See also Kutlay, “The Politics.”
47 Öniş, “Turkey’s Two Elections.”
48 Ibid.
49 For an analysis of the coup attempt from an ontological security perspective, see Adisonmez and Onursal, “Growing Anxiety.”
50 Amnesty International, “The State of Emergency.”
51 Yeni Safak, “Darbe Girişiminin.”
52 Öniş, “The Triumph.”
53 Hodson, “Complete Lack.”
54 Demiralp and Demiralp, “Erosion of Central Bank.”
55 Oyvat, “The End of Boom,” 5.
56 Data retrieved from Turkish Statistical Institute.
57 Data retrieved from the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey.
58 Yackley, “Grocery Stores.”
59 See also Zengin and Ongur, “How sovereign,” 583.
60 Bianet, “Erdoğan.”
61 Yeni Safak, “81 Ilde Fiyat.”
62 Yackley, “Grocery Stores.”
63 Ibid.
64 Daily Sabah, “President Erdoğan.”
65 Öniş, “Turkey under the Challenge.”
66 Authors’ calculation based on data retrieved from the Turkish Statistical Institute.
67 Kaplica, “Ekonomik Payı.”
68 Pitel, “Erdoğan Orders.”
69 World Bank, “Turkey Economic,” 55–6.
70 Authors’ own calculations based on data from the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey.
71 Data retrieved from the World Bank PPI Database, available at https://ppi.worldbank.org/snapshots/rankings.
72 The Law No. 6741 on Establishment of Turkish Wealth Fund Management Company and Amendments in Certain Laws Official Gazette, 26 August 2016.
73 Ant, “Erdoğan names.”
74 Cumhurbaşkanlığı Kararnamesi, Resmi Gazete, no. 30083, 7 August 2019.
75 Data retrieved from the World Bank, World Development Indicators database.
76 IMF, “Global Financial Stability,” 6.
77 Köstem, “Russian-Turkish.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Ziya Öniş
Ziya Öniş is Professor of International Political Economy at Koç University in Istanbul. He is the former Director of both the Center for Research on Globalization, Peace and Democratic Governance (GLODEM) (2010–2013) and the Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities (2006–2009) at Koç University. His recent research focuses on the global financial crisis and its implications for future patterns of globalization, southern varieties of capitalism, democratization in emerging powers, the political economy of Turkey during the AKP era. His articles have been published in numerous journals, including Review of International Political Economy, New Political Economy, Governance, Journal of Democracy, Comparative Politics, Government and Opposition, Development and Change, Mediterranean Politics, Third World Quarterly, Democratization, and Political Science Quarterly.
Mustafa Kutlay
Mustafa Kutlay is a lecturer at the Department of International Politics at City, University of London, United Kingdom. Dr. Kutlay works on comparative politics, political economy, emerging powers, and Southern Europe. His articles have appeared in Government and Opposition, Third World Quarterly, Australian Journal of International Affairs, and the Journal of Contemporary European Studies.