This thesis aims to evaluate the Turkish Labour Law on the basis of a new approach to legal studies that follow the internal tendency of legal science to resolve its own problem, which is that of convincingly defining the point of contact between norm and fact (form and content), materially connecting the juridical organisation of power with the social structuring of power, while avoiding both formalist and positivist deviations. Against this background, the thesis aims to assess the correlation between the recent changes in the international division of labour and the structural forms, on the axis of which the Turkish legal system functions. This endeavour includes an attempt to view law in its location as a component to a general and persistent process of social regulation that secures general patterns of social domination. This study argues that the role of the collective labour law over the stabilisation of wage relations is increasingly deteriorated by the changing nature of the state and of work, including the new institutionality and the increasing influence of business over labour politics. After the &lsquo / discovery&rsquo / of the importance of the universal principle of the freedom of contract in labour law, the regulatory powers of individual labour law have extended to the realm of capital-labour relations having an impact over the social division of labour and have acquired a relative dominance.

Within this thesis, the dominant conceptualisations of the state/market and the national/global within international political economy are put into a critical scrutiny. It is emphasized that within most of the analyses of globalisation and the state, these conceptualisations are built in a dualist manner and that the internal relation between them is ignored. Within this context, it will be focused on three prominent approaches in contemporary international political economy literature, namely regulation approach, neo-Gramscian approach and open Marxism which scrutinise the relation between globalisation and the state. Through an analysis of the methodological and conceptual frameworks of regulation and neo-Gramscian approaches with a particular focus on the relationship they posit between globalisation and the state, the political/ economic and the national/ global conceptualisations of these approaches will be criticised for being dualist. Such a criticism will be developed by deriving insights from open Marxist perspective which provides a relational conception of the political/economic and the global/national and, through emphasizing that globalism is inherent in capitalism and capital is a global social relation which cannot be taken as separate from labour, perceives the state and market as internally related forms of capitalist social relations of production.

The vision of New Zealand as a 'knowledge society' is a mantra that has opened the twenty-first century. Underpinning any 'knowledge society', however; are people who turn resources into concrete products and who build, maintain and service the technological and social infrastructure essential to society. This thesis examines the skilled trades and, in particular, how people are trained for those trades. Industry training is a crucial component of the wealth-generating capabilities of New Zealand. It is also an essential part of the way that many young people make the transition from school to work and from adolescence to adulthood. The means of training tradespeople has moved over the years from the rigid and prescriptive apprenticeship system, to the more voluntaristic, industry-led 'industry training' strategy, introduced following the Industry Training Act 1992. Regardless of the system used to organise training, however, there have been long-standing problems in New Zealand with achieving the optimum number of skilled workers, possessing the correct 'mix' of skills required. In this research, based upon semi-structured interviews with industry training stakeholders four industry case studies, policy content analysis and an in-depth examination of the Modem Apprenticeships scheme, I ask three key questions. First, what are the things that, as a country, we could or should reasonably expect a 'good' industry training system to contribute to? These may be things like: an adequate supply of appropriately skilled workers, the ability to upskill or reskill these workers as needed, clear transition routes for young people, lifelong learning opportunities, equity goals and foundation skills. Second, I ask how the current system performs against these criteria. The short answer is that the performance is 'patchy'. There are dire skill shortages in many areas. While opportunities for workplace upskilling, reskilling or 'lifelong learning' are available, I argue that they are not yet cemented into a 'training culture'. Workplace-based learning is an important transition route for a small percentage of our young people but the favoured route is some form of tertiary education, which may be an expensive and not necessarily relevant option. Third, I ask why the performance of New Zealand's industry training system is often less than desirable. My argument is that the problems and solutions thereof, of skill formation in New Zealand have been understood largely in terms of the supply-side. That is, we have either critiqued, or looked to reform, whatever system has been in place to train skilled workers. The inadequacy of this approach is evident from weaknesses in the ability of either the prescriptive apprenticeship system or the voluntaristic industry training strategy to deliver an appropriately skilled workforce. Thus, I also examine the demand side of skill formation: the wider influences that impact on employers' training decisions. Training decisions made by individual employers, the aggregation of which represent the level and quality of training for New Zealand as a whole, are influenced by a plethora of factors. At the micro level of the employer or firm, I explore barriers to training and some of the constraints to the demand for skills. I then examine broader influences, such as the changing shape of the workforce, labour market regulation and wider economic factors, all of which impact on training levels.