Thirty years after the bloodiest coup in its modern history, Turkey is now a democratizing country with a liberal market and a blooming civil society. This transformation is attributed to the democratic potential and deeds of Turkey’s Islamic bourgeoisie, which has been an ardent supporter of the internationally monitored program of market liberalization and the EU integration/reform process since the 1990s. Muslim businesses’ curious relationship with the secular Turkish state and traditional business elites presents a compelling case for interest group theory. This dissertation evaluates the interest group theories’ propositions on policy-based interaction between state institutions and business interest groups to conclude that in most countries, hybrid models emerge, bringing together elements of pluralism and corporatism. The dissertation discusses the evolution and application in Turkey of interest group theories – particularly corporatism, clientelism and pluralism – and identifies the secular and Islamic business communities in Turkey to assess Islamic business associations’ economic and political influence on AKP era policies and business-state relations. The research offers two conclusions: Turkey’s Islamic business associations are able to access AKP government’s economic and social policymaking via traditional and new corporatist structures and to enjoy a close working relationship with the government and the state institutions. Their enhanced policy influence is as much a result of the moral, sociocultural and religious alignment between their members, Turkey’s Muslim conservative capitalists, and the AKP leadership as a consequence of the professionalism and organizational capacity of Islamic business associations. The prevalence of Muslim conservative actors in Turkey’s society, culture, politics and economy, as observed via Islamic business associations in this dissertation, do not pose a clear and imminent threat to the secular and democratic foundations of the Turkish Republic because Muslim conservative businessmen are pragmatists, who recognize and respond to domestic and transnational social, economic and political dynamics. Also, their religious affiliation is exaggerated to the extent that their Muslimness became a red herring, diverting the attention of spectators and analysts from the real problem with Turkey’s democratization and marketization process: the failures in the practice and implementation of the essential legal/institutional reforms that would bring about a plural, transparent and accountable policymaking environment.

This thesis analyses the politics of economic restructuring in Turkey in the 2000s under the governments of the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi – Justice and Development Party) that came to power in 2002. The work contextualises the restructuring of state-capital-labour relations against the background of the military coup in 1980, the crisis-ridden transformations of Turkish state in the 1990s and in particular against the background of the economic crisis of 2001. The thesis assesses the conventional accounts of the AKP government, which see it as the government that successfully overcame the turmoils of the 1990s, led the Turkish economy onto a growth path during the 2000s, and established a rules-based, democratic form of government. In distinction, the thesis argues that the AKP government set upon a market liberalising economic policy that was started in the 1980s. The analysis of the restructuring of labour relations in Turkey under the AKP shows great continuity with earlier policy objectives. In this context, the thesis argues that the success of the AKP government has to do with both the political consequences of the crisis of 2001, which delegitimised the then parties of government, and the economic consequences of credit-driven global economy that supported the Turkish economic growth. The crash in 2008 put a hold on this and the thesis analyses the trajectory of the post-2007 AKP government as crisis-ridden. The theoretical conception of the thesis problematises approaches that rely on the state-market dichotomy that is inherent in the discipline of International Political Economy (IPE). The thesis develops the approach associated with the Conference of Socialist Economists (CSE), which argued for an internal relationship between state and market, conceiving of both as distinct forms of capitalist social relations. The work, thus, conceptualises the developments of the Turkish political economy as continuous efforts in restructuring labour relations for the purpose of removing barriers to capital accumulation and achieving free economy.

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This thesis examines the social and material construction of Turkey as an emerging market. It does so through the lens of discourses, knowledge and practices within the emerging markets industry. Furthermore this study also examines the power geometries between different actors and centres of evaluation to understand how these circumstances influence the production of knowledge about Turkey. Set within debates on emerging markets and geographies of finance, the thesis focuses on Turkey’s bond and equity markets. It makes use of a variety of methodologies including semistructured interviews, textual analysis and the analysis of published data from various sources. The underlying argument of the thesis rests on the mutually formative nature of the territorialities and relationalities of discourses, knowledge and practices. Discourses shape what is regarded as knowledge. Knowledge of Turkey informs the discourses around the Turkish economy and so shape the nature of, and the ways in which, economic practices are put to work. Economic practices produce new knowledge, which in turn informs the production of new discourses. These discourses, knowledge and practices are, in turn, shaped by their own territorial and relational geographies (e.g. the power geometries of the Turkish emerging market industry). Thus, the thesis explores not only the social, political and economic dynamics taking place within Turkey and its emerging links with Europe, the Middle East and the wider geo-political economy, but explores how discourses and knowledge about these developments are also the product of the socio-spatial relations of the emerging market industry. The thesis sets out to show how all of these influences both respond to and shape developments on the ground, and so actively contribute to the emergent economic geographies of Turkey as an emerging market

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