Authoritarian neoliberalism in AKP's Turkey: an industrial relations perspective

• Published date: 01 May 2019
• Author: Didem Özkiziltan
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12248
• Date: 01 May 2019

Authoritarian neoliberalism in AKP’s

Turkey: an industrial relations perspective

Didem Özkiziltan

ABSTRACT

Authoritarian neoliberal governance of industrial relations is on the rise around the

world, displaying remarkable similarities across countries with similar democratic

political structures. However, despite a certain degree of resemblance, countries have

been following divergent paths rendering each case unique in terms of its experience.

This article explains the specific path through which authoritarian neoliberalism was

materialised in the governance of Turkey’s industrial relations under AKP rule. It is

purported that AKP’s pursuit of authoritarian neoliberalism in its governance of

industrial relations shares certain similarities with the emerging market economies,

which have a less democratic political system. However, it is contended that the

governance of Turkey’s industrial relations under AKP leadership embodies spatially

and temporally distinct characteristics integrating long-established authoritarian

institutional structures and practices with neoliberal ideology, powerful political

alliances, Islamic values, repressive practices and mounting resistance, thus rendering

it a unique form of authoritarian neoliberalism.

1 INTRODUCTION

The congruity between neoliberalism and authoritarianism has caught significant

scholarly attention over the years. Currently, increasing numbers of scholars consider

neoliberalism, as Brown (2005: 38) aptly put it, as being ‘compatible with, and some-

times even productive of, authoritarian, despotic, paramilitaristic, and corrupt state

forms as well as agents within civil society’(see, e.g. Bruff, 2016; Diamond, 2015;

Huq and Ginsburg, 2017; Kiely, 2017; Tansel, 2017). Accordingly, the concept ‘au-

thoritarian neoliberalism’has become a buzzword amongst a group of authors com-

monly used to denote ‘historically specific set of capitalist accumulation strategies

that both exacerbate the existing, structural trends in the political organization of cap-

italism and embody distinct practices geared towards unshackling accumulation at

the expense of democratic politics and popular participation’(Tansel, 2017: 6). The

scholarly literature suggests two main characteristics for identifying authoritarian

modes of neoliberal governance. That is, such regimes (i) undermine or restrain public

involvement in policymaking and (ii) protect neoliberal policies through a collection

of coercive instruments that include curbing the opportunities for collective resistance

and diminishing formal liberties (Bruff, 2016; Tansel, 2017).

❒Didem Özkiziltan, Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow, Osteuropa-Institut, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Garystr

55, Berlin 14195, Germany. Correspondence should be addressed to Didem Özkiziltan, Osteuropa-Institut,

Freie Universitaet Berlin, Garystr 55, Berlin 14195, Germany; email: didemozk@yahoo.com

Industrial Relations Journal 50:3, 218–239

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2019 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

According to the general lines of the narrative that is widely used across the schol-

arly literature, authoritarian neoliberalism is on the rise around the globe taking on

different directions in different settings (Bruff, 2016; Kiely, 2017; Tansel, 2017). In

some instances, particularly amongst the emerging market economies, it is manifested

by an overall illiberal and antidemocratic turn in the political arena, as has been the

case in countries like Russia, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Turkey, Thailand and

Venezuela (Diamond, 2015; Huq and Ginsburg, 2017). In others, especially in the

more developed ones of the Western world, this has taken the direction of curbing

the opportunities for collective resistance in specific socio-economic spheres through

constitutional and legal adjustments (Bruff, 2014; Kennedy, 2016; McBride and

Mitrea, 2017; Wigger, 2018).

Despite the existence of a rich body of research on authoritarian neoliberalism,

some authors have raised their concerns regarding the lack of scholarly attention to

the diverse trajectories that authoritarian neoliberal turns take. For, countries are em-

bedded in the established paths of institutional structures and practices, political re-

gimes and struggles, thus rendering each country unique in its experience (Bozkurt-

Güngen, 2018; Clua-Losada and Ribera-Almandoz, 2017; Falleti, 2011; Geddes,

1999). Indeed, as Geddes (1999: 121) has rightly pointed out ‘different kinds of au-

thoritarianism differ from each other as much as they differ from democracy’.

A closer look at the extant literature suggests that the diversity of authoritarian

paths to neoliberalism becomes highly conspicuous regarding issues relating to labour

markets and industrial relations, especially when the countries are grouped in accor-

dance with their democratic characteristics. Indeed, for instance, research on the

countries that have more established democracies suggests that the increasing author-

itarian stance adopted by neoliberal governments/supranational bodies has effec-

tively decreased the workers’opportunities for improving their wages and working

conditions through rearrangement of traditional industrial relations institutions in

such a way as to empower business (Clua-Losada and Ribera-Almandoz, 2017; Ken-

nedy, 2016; McBride and Mitrea, 2017; Wigger, 2018). For instance, following the

Global Financial Crisis of 2007–08, in Greece, wage-setting practices became increas-

ingly fragmented, unions rights to collectively bargain at the company level were

weakened and the determination of the minimum wage was passed from the social

partners to the government (Kennedy, 2016). Likewise, in the Spanish context, during

the same period companies were allowed to make a cut down on wages pursuant to

their profits, redundancy procedures were eased, and collective bargaining was

decentralised (Clua-Losada and Ribera-Almandoz, 2017).

The research on the countries with less democratic forms of government, on the

other hand, highlights two key aspects in describing the governance of labour policies

under the grip of authoritarian neoliberalism. In the first instance, there is the states’

concerted effort to transform/disable the already problematic democratic institutions

with the aim of further undermining labour’s possibilities for democratic expression

of alternative policies regarding work and wider socio-economic issues. Regarding

which, Solfrini (2001) argues that Peru’s democratisation process has always been ac-

companied by high levels of hostility towards labour, lack of political dialogue, re-

duced labour rights and persistent efforts to eliminate workers and unions from the

political domain. Similarly, Chiu (2011) maintains that Taiwanese trade unions’en-

deavours to play their political role as the workers’representatives in wider socio-

economic and democratic reforms during the period when the nation underwent a po-

litical liberalisation process in the late 1980s were ruthlessly cracked down on with the

219Authoritarian neoliberalism in AKP’s Turkey

© 2019 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd