The collapse of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1990s, and the integration of China
into the world trade system have transformed the process of accumulation of capital across the
world. This shift in global capitalism has also transformed global value chains, dividing the
process of production into segments in different countries. In this new phase of capitalism, the
so-called “emerging” market economies have been a major target for transnational companies.
These companies have penetrated the countries of the Global South with their industrial and
financial capital. Turkey has been one of the most popular destinations for these companies to
invest in because of its remarkable performance in terms of its foreign trade success and its short-term economic growth in the 2000s. Accordingly, Turkey has experienced a series of structural
changes in its process of capital accumulation. This was seen as confirming the neoclassical
idea that free trade would lead to economic and social convergence among the countries engaged
in it. Thus, mainstream approaches argue that the liberalisation of foreign trade regimes and
adoption of market-friendly policies will result in economic growth for both sides and an
increase in foreign trade volume. This is the updated version of David Ricardo’s theory of
comparative advantage which suggests that different parties engaging in foreign trade would
mutually benefit from the exchange of goods and services. Remarkably, this necessitated
establishing an alliance between different social classes in Turkey and transnational capital
operating in different social formations. The resultant outcome was to increase the level of
integration of the countries in the Global South and to integrate them into the global value
chain. However, the evidence from Southern countries, like Turkey, starkly differed from the
predictions of the neoclassical theory of comparative advantage. In particular, Turkey did not
catch up with advanced capitalist countries and thus the rapid growth in exports and profits in
Turkey in the 2000s did not affect the underlying structure of unequal trade. It was a success
for capital accumulation, but not a developmental success.
In analysing the integration of Turkey into global free trade, this book argues that
Turkey has integrated into the global free trade in an uneven way, which increased the
asymmetrical effects of the global free trade system on the Turkish social formation. The book
also argues that integration into transnational circuits was enhanced after the 2001 banking
crisis, which resulted in the intervention of the IMF into the Turkish social formation. This
involved implementing market-friendly and anti-labor policies, and also increased
privatization of state institutions for the sake of the transnational capital (TNC) fraction in
Turkey. During this new era of global free trade, Turkish economic growth was partly based
on its increased export performance in the automotive and textile sectors as well as foreign
capital inflow which increased the dependence of Turkey on international financial capital and
foreign direct investment (FDI). In this period, new cycles of investment have begun in Turkey
and TNC in Turkey has also invested in international markets. This made Turkey an
intermediate producer in global production chains, as a site where companies assemble
imported resources into finished goods. This increases the dependency of the different class
fractions in Turkey on the global market to reproduce the social relations of production. Turkish
domestic investment is heavily dependent on capital inflows, or in other words, Turkish
production is dependent on the import of low-value-added intermediate goods, especially in
the automotive sector, a type of dependency which has become a characteristic feature of the
Turkish economy. Turkey has become an importer of intermediate goods from countries in
Asia and an exporter of finished goods to European countries. Accordingly, the share of
countries in Europe and the Americas in Turkey’s total export volume is 64.7 percent (TUIK,
2019). The top export destinations of Turkish companies in 2018 are Germany (9.6 per cent),
the UK (6.6 percent), Italy (5.7per cent), Iraq (5 percent), the US (4.9 percent), Spain (4.6
percent), France (4.3 percent), Netherlands (2.8 percent), and Belgium (2.4 percent). On the
other hand, China is Turkey’s second largest import partner after Russia in 2018 (Turkey
imports almost 50 percent of its gas from Russia). This also increased the foreign trade deficit
of the country, which was almost $100 billion in 2013 and $55 billion in 2018. In this new
relation, Turkey did not gain persistent autonomy in relation to the countries in the so-called
“emerging markets”. In this free market, the integration into the different social formations
through export of capital and power has created contradictions which threatened the continuity
of the process of capital accumulation. This means the more the integration of Turkey into
global free trade advances, the more Turkey becomes dependent on different forms of capital
accumulation in these countries.
Through a set of conceptual reflections, this book defines Turkey as a late developing
capitalist country in the Global South, which has submitted itself to the process of global capital
accumulation in an uneven way. Capitalist classes have played important roles in the process
of Turkey’s integration into the world economy. This book does not only examine the
contradictions between countries but also between sectors, regions, and classes engaged in
production, circulation, and revalorisation processes which emerged as a result of the uneven
integration into the world economy. The book pays attention to the structural peculiarities of
each site in which free trade takes place, and its primary concern is to grasp the role of business
associations and the state in facilitating free trade relations. The focus of this book is to examine
the role of business associations in Turkey by analysing the dialectical relationship between
global free trade relations and the Turkish social formation under the Justice and Development
Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP) government from 2002 to the present. Thus, it
provides the reader with a context within which to understand how the discussion of business
associations adds to an understanding of social formations in Turkey and concludes by showing
how the Turkish experience can have a general application to Southern countries.
To unpack the argument of the book, this study constructs a three-level analysis on the
standard pattern of Neo-Gramscian analysis, i.e., the social relations of production, forms of
state and world order (See Figure 1). The relationship between these three levels is not
unilinear, and these overlapping relations provide the structure of the book (See Figure 1).
Taking the social relations of production as a point of departure, the first sub-question of the
book investigates the production structure in order to identify the class characteristics of the
member firms of different business associations in the Turkish social formation. As a second
step, the book examines the relationship between business associations and the state in order
to theorize the complex relationships within the ruling power bloc in the Turkish social
formation. Hence, this book analyses the role of the Turkish state in integrating business
associations into global free trade relations and managing internalization of global class
relations in the Turkish social formation. Finally, it examines the integration of business
associations into global free trade relations in order to highlight the historical specificity of the
Turkish case among other countries in the Global South.
Akif Avcı 