Rentierism: Distorted representations of Turkey

Conventional wisdom suggests that there must be a categorical difference between providing rhetorical support to a given position as a staunch supporter, or sworn enemy of a particular political movement, and maintaining intellectual integrity, fairness and objectivity. Recently, tendencies of "intellectual deformation" has become prominent in Turkey whereby renowned authors, academics and intellectuals systematically resort to distortions in conceptual or analytical frameworks to interfere in the tense political conjuncture. There were also frequent cases of "intellectual neocolonialism" aimed at stigmatizing the government and the wider political establishment through accusations of authoritarianism, dictatorship and economic mismanagement, which were deemed to take the country into systemic failure.

In the wake of the Soma mining disaster, two clichés have been widely adopted by different circles as part of the wider critique of government policies, but neither of them was appropriately formulated in light of empirical realities on the ground. The first cliché concerns the idea that Turkey's recent policy path followed orthodox neoliberalism and this has been the root cause of the country's troubles concerning workplace security that surfaced following the disaster in Soma. Although it is clear that Turkey has a long way to go to improve the legal infrastructure concerning workplace security and its effective implementation, the complex realities on the ground cannot be explained by referring to clichés such as "orthodox neoliberalism" or "wild capitalism."

As a conservative-democratic political movement, the AK Party followed pro-market economic policies since its inception as opposed to mainstream Islamist parties in the Middle East. It is also true that Turkey under the AK Party constructed an efficient regulatory framework concerning banking and financial sectors, but the same regulative success was not shown regarding industrial, manufacturing and mining sectors. So, what the Soma episode should unveil is not the collapse of Turkish neoliberalism, but the concrete need for a comprehensive industrial policy and workplace security regulation.

The second, and even more interesting, accusation was based on the claim that Turkey has taken a new authoritarian path under the AK Party through a system of "rentierism a la Turca." This accusation was so poorly structured and shockingly framed that it turned the conventional "rentier state theory," development economics and democratization literature on their heads. It is true that Turkey has a structural balance of payments problem, the real interest rates are relatively high and there is dependency to the inflow of greenfield and portfolio investments to maintain rapid growth. But these factors, some of which are also valid for emerging powers such as Brazil and South Africa, do not make Turkey a "rentier state."

As is known, rentierism was based on the pragmatic distribution of funds derived from natural resources (oil, natural gas), foreign aid or workers' remittances to maintain oppressive regimes during the Cold War. Several rentier regimes partly or completely unraveled with the Arab Spring. After three decades of economic liberalization, comprehensive regulative reform and democratic openings on the way to EU accession, it would be a gross anachronism to claim that Turkey is a rentier state where citizens accept authoritarianism in return for basic welfare.

The current political conjuncture feeds into tendencies of intellectual neocolonialism and self-stigmatization. Yet the simple truth is that Turkey is a rising regional power with crucial developmental and regulatory needs.