Protection of Capitalism as a Regime of Rationality: A Historical Institutionalist Rereading of Modern Turkey’s Industrial Relations

Abstract

Turkey’s current collective labour legislation places heavy restrictions on trade union, strike, and collective bargaining rights. Regarding which, conventional wisdom cites the country’s ongoing neoliberal transformation since the early 1980s. This article explains the post-1980 institutional transformation by placing the institutional history of Turkey’s industrial relations under the optic of historical institutionalism by laying special emphasis on the dominant interests steering industrial relations and the legal and practical causal mechanisms put at work in materialisation of these interests. It is concluded that curtailment of work-related collective rights and freedoms for the protection of capitalist development has displayed a remarkable historical continuity as a regime of rationality in Turkey. Such restriction created long-term institutional path-dependencies in the policies governing Turkey’s industrial relations, thereby exerting a significant impact on industrial relations policy and practices in the post-1980 period.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.