Building a Competitive Authoritarian Regime: State–Business Relations in the AKP’s Turkey

Berk Esen and Sebnem Gumuscu

Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 2018, vol. 20, issue 4, 349-372

Abstract: The most recent global wave of democratic reversal is marked by executive takeovers. Politically motivated interventions in domestic markets aimed at restructuring the underlying power dynamics in society have been part and parcel of these takeovers. This article investigates the new political economy behind the AKP’s competitive authoritarian rule in Turkey as an example of this larger trend. The article argues that the AKP government has built a loyal business class through an elaborate system of rewards and punishment since 2002. With the aim of consolidating its business constituency, the AKP politicized state institutions (debt collection, tax authorities, privatization, public procurement) and eroded the rule of law to distribute rents and resources to its supporters, transfer capital from its opponents to its supporters, and to discipline dissidents in business circles. These mechanisms allowed the party to skew the political playing field in its favour through its access to private resources as well as its disproportionate access to the media—built by pro-AKP businessmen—and thus underpinned the AKP’s competitive authoritarian regime.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/19448953.2018.1385924 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cjsbxx:v:20:y:2018:i:4:p:349-372

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cjsb20

DOI: 10.1080/19448953.2018.1385924

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies is currently edited by Professor Vassilis Fouskas

More articles in Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().