Privatization In Turkey

Urkey's privatization effort has shrunk to being a technique for financing the budget deficit, with loftier targets for greater efficiency pushed into the background.

In Privatization in Turkey: Power Bloc, Capital Accumulation and State, Ahmet Zaifer offers a rare look on privatization in Turkey that involves all three historical periods of Turkish privatization process -1980s and 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s- and covers different forms of privatization from divestiture to public-private partnership. Benefiting from theoretically informed qualitative research spanning nearly a decade that has involved several interviews with key informant groups, extensive review of newspaper articles and detailed analysis of annual reports of businesses, Ahmet Zaifer convincingly proves that the acceleration of privatization in Turkey has not only provided advantages to so-called favourable capital groups and the government elites, but also consolidated the position of Capital in General at the expense of labouring-popular classes and the natural environment of the entire country.

2011 Updated Reprint. Updated Annually. Turkey Privatization Programs and Regulations Handbook

This work analyzes the Turkish effort at privatization from 1979 to 1990, shedding light on the obstacles that arose in a country with a 50-year tradition of economic paternalism. From the creation of Turkey after World War I, state control, complete with state-owned firms and government financial institutions, was integral to the state and enshrined as a principle in the 1937 constitution. But with the oil shocks of the 1970s, major adjustments became necessary, and by 1979 a programme of privatization was begun.