Neoliberal Transformation of the State through the Establishment of Independent Regulatory Agencies : The Case of "Tobacco and Alcohol Market Regulatory Authority" in Turkey

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2012

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Şafak - Çubukçu, Öykü

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Based upon critical political economy and Marxist theory of the state, this thesis attempts to understand the neoliberal form of the capitalist state in Turkey. While doing this, it puts the establishment of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) into the framework of the claim of de-politicization and redefined form of the separation of the political and the economic under neoliberalism. It argues that neoliberalism solved its crisis and settled through each financial crisis, as a result of which the state is restructured. Acceleration of the delayed neoliberal transformation in Turkish agriculture through crises provides a ground to this argument. This study focuses on Tobacco and Alcohol Market Regulatory Authority (TAPDK) as an IRA, which enables analysis of neoliberal transformation of both agriculture and the state. Besides; the thesis includes an analysis of the Tobacco Law, which established TAPDK, since it is accepted that law is a significant mediation of the settlement of neoliberal hegemony. Furthermore, the thesis utilizes from in-depth interviews with not only officials from TAPDK, but also previous workers of tobacco and cigarette producing factories and tobacco farmers in order to find out how the labouring classes experienced the transformation. This contributes to the development of an analysis of the state as an arena of class struggle. Therefore; it is asserted, in this thesis, that TAPDK exemplifies the mediation of capital-labour relations by the state in tobacco sector, and appears as an arena of class struggle, as opposed to the discourse of the purification of economic management from politics.

Subject Keywords

Neoliberalism., Agriculture and state., Agriculture

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12614283/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/21463

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

Ö. Şafak - Çubukçu, “ Neoliberal Transformation of the State through the Establishment of Independent Regulatory Agencies : The Case of “Tobacco and Alcohol Market Regulatory Authority” in Turkey ,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2012.