Neoliberal Globalization and the Democracy Paradox: The Turkish General Elections of 1999.

• Author: ONIS, ZIYA

"The deep sense of uncertainty, and the feeling of rootlessness produced by globalization have clearly contributed to the rise of often authoritarian forms of identity politics to the center stage in the political arena."

Naeoliberal globalization as a late 20th century phenomenon is n inherently contradictory process. It is a process that unleashes tremendous potential for economic growth driven by rapid technological progress, notably in the areas of communications and information technology and is associated with the opening of markets and the rapid expansion of trade and capital flows. At the same time, it is a highly uneven process that tends to aggravate inequality between as well as within countries, by favoring certain regions or social groups over others. The uneven nature of neoliberal globalization is also a reflection or even a byproduct of the different speeds at which globalization occurs. It thus creates disproportionate benefits in favor of the industrialized countries of the North and the small number of semi-peripheral countries or emerging markets, such as Turkey, which are tied to the northern countries through north-south regional blocs. Significant parts of the developing world have been marginalized and left out of this process. Within individual countries, neoliberal globalization tends to create a group of winners who are able to take advantage of access to technology and integration with the world markets. Concurrently, it tends to create a group of losers, who lack the skills and the capacity to adapt themselves to the new environment and, hence, are excluded from its potential benefits. Natural corollaries of this tendency are the growing differentiation within the national economy and the dichotomy of highly prosperous and declining, or stagnant, regions within the same national economic space.

The paradox of neoliberal globalization is that it unifies and integrates while it fragments and marginalizes. Globalization of the world economy finds its most complete form in financial markets; the process has been less thorough, however, in the areas of foreign direct investment and foreign trade. In the latter, in spite of significant recent moves to establish a free, multilateral world trading environment, striking elements of protectionism continue to exist and novel instruments of protectionism are created, notably in industrialized countries, in the form of labor and environmental and technical standards.(1)

While financial globalization constitutes the most successful aspect of neoliberal globalization, labor mobility comprises the sphere where progress to date has been the most limited. Labor mobility applies largely to a sub-group of highly skilled employees. Unskilled or semi-skilled workers are usually confined to their national territories and look to their respective governments to improve their living standards.

The contradictory processes unleashed by neoliberal globalization thus places enormous strains and tensions on the state. In the aftermath of widespread privatization, as well as trade and capital account liberalization, many of the functions that the state has traditionally performed have become obsolete. This is not to argue that the state itself has no useful function to perform in the age of globalization. The state has to modify and adapt itself to the new environment and assume new responsibilities in such key areas as building human capital and technological infrastructure, maintaining macroeconomic stability, creating a competitive environment and regulating financial systems. The "competition state," which requires productive integration with the global economy, however, is a state that possesses limited capacity to provide social welfare. Indeed, attempts to extend the boundaries of the welfare state may result in capital flight and stagnation in an environment where individual nations are competing fiercely to attract the available pool of global capital.

This article attempts to study the impact of neoliberal globalization on the process of democratization. First, I will discuss the conceptual relationship between neoliberal globalization and democratization. Then I will look at Turkey's specific experience with globalization and will identify some of its impacts on the Turkish economy Next, I turn to the political question and examine how globalization has affected political outcomes. This section specifically analyzes the results of the 1999 election and the trend toward party fragmentation. The last section analyzes the impact of this fragmentation on Turkey's democratization process. The Turkish experience presents itself as an interesting case because Turkey, as a second-generation newly industrialized country (NIC) and an emerging market, has experienced both the positive and negative aspects of neoliberal globalization during the 1980s and 1990s. From a comparative perspective, the Turkish case also illustrates how the universal features of neoliberal globalization interact with certain specific national characteristics, such as the presence of a tradition of a strong, centralized state, which influences the process of sociopolitical development and the course of democratization within the national context.

NEOLIBERAL GLOBALIZATION AND THE DEMOCRACY PARADOX: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Does neoliberal globalization promote democracy, abstract democracy or both? This is a difficult question to answer. The relationship between globalization and democracy, or democratization, is a complex, ambiguous and contradictory one. In general, the impact of globalization on prospects for democratic governance in many parts of the world appears to be extremely favorable and prospects for democracy on a global scale indeed seem better than ever. Authoritarian regimes have been dismantled, or are in the process of being dismantled, in many parts of the developing world, notably in Latin America, East Asia and Eastern Europe.(2) The current wave of economic globalization is resulting in Western-style, liberal and pluralistic polities, which set high standards regarding human rights. Increasingly, successful economic integration requires political reforms. Paradoxically, and in striking contrast to the Cold War era, transnational corporations and financial institutions are unwilling to invest in and lend to countries with authoritarian structures and weak human rights records. Authoritarian regimes are no longer justified on the grounds of stability or security, as in the past, and are increasingly associated with favoritism, lack of transparency and uncertainty. Transnational institutions like the World Bank place increasing emphasis on "good governance," suggesting that the development of strong and democratically accountable institutions have a critical role to play in successful economic development. Another striking element associated with contemporary patterns of globalization concerns the development of civil society and the proliferation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This is a process that manifests itself in industrial societies, and is also reflected, perhaps to a lesser extent, in the development of transnational NGOs. A positive correlation appears to exist between the development of civil society on a national or global basis and an extension of civil or human rights and freedom within individual countries.

Considering the arguments that I have presented thus far, it is not surprising that many people tend to conceptualize globalization and democratization as necessarily parallel, interchangeable and mutually reinforcing phenomena. The reality is more complex, however, and a deeper analysis would suggest that the relationship between globalization and democracy contains a dark, negative side along with the positive, favorable features mentioned above.

Associated with these patterns of globalization has been the emergence of nationalist and fundamentalist movements of various sorts, movements that tend to create enormous tensions during democratization. Authoritarian or exclusionary identity politics seem to be a necessary corollary of globalization, although the manifestations of such politics vary among countries. The growing influence of the far right in Western Europe, the spread of micro or ethno-nationalism in Eastern Europe and parts of Latin America and the resurgence of political Islam in the Middle East are arguably diverse national or regional representations of the same global tendency.(3) From the perspective of political economy; this tendency is not difficult to explain. As suggested earlier, globalization is an intrinsically uneven process that dislocates individuals, uproots communities, creates unemployment and increases the degree of uncertainty in the lives of a growing number of individuals. Thus, globalization creates a large group of losers, and exclusionary identity politics based on race, religion or ethnic identity becomes a natural means whereby the losers of globalization protest, seek to recover their lost positions and try to re-establish a degree of stability and certainty in their lives.

In many cases, these groups or movements benefit from the emergence of a more pluralistic political environment. Ironically though, in many cases their own democratic credentials are rather weak. They typically see democracy as a means to consolidate their own political position and their political projects, rather than an end in itself. Clearly; the emergence of anti-systemic political movements or parties, basing their claim for legitimacy on an exclusionary group identity; generates enormous ambiguities and tensions, notably but not exclusively; for nascent democratic regimes. This raises serious issues about how much these movements should be tolerated, and how democracies should best protect themselves from fundamentalist political movements who see democracy largely in instrumental terms.

Another difficult...