Ontological status of neoliberalism: a Critical Realist Marxist approach

2022-3
Yeşilyurt, Baver
Show full item record
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
677
views
362
downloads
The present thesis dwells upon the conviction that an appropriate understanding of neoliberalism should consider capital-labor relations, intra-capital relations, relations between social classes and the state, and last but not least, international capitalist system in its totality. Although Marxist political economy tradition embraces the multidisciplinary research efforts, Marxist definitions of neoliberalism are somehow under the risk of slipping into reductionism. In this thesis, which adopts a Marxist political economy view, a new understanding of the notion of neoliberalism is introduced by considering the multiplicity of social structures, generative mechanisms and strategies of various agencies regarding the class struggle, in a way that is consistent with the Critical Realist approach of Roy Bhaskar’s. However, this conception also refrains from reducing the notion to mere social structures or accumulation strategies. Neoliberalism itself is defined as a system, a catalyst that mediates structure and agency. Neoliberalism is a market-oriented project without subject, led by collective imperialism, dominated by financial capital, subjugated by labor, supported by the economic regulatory role of the authoritarian state and market ideology. The essence of this system will be sought in the tension between commodification and resistance to commodification that is through double movement.
Neoliberalism, Critical Realism, Accumulation strategies, Marxist political economy, Double movement
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/96340
Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

Privatization of security and the transformation of the modern bourgeois state in the neoliberal era: the case of Turkey
Dölek, Çağlar; Bedirhanoğlu Toker, Pınar; Department of Political Science and Public Administration (2011)
This thesis problematizes the phenomenon of privatization of security within the context of the neoliberal transformation of the capitalist state in Turkey. On the basis of the critique of neo-Weberian and Foucauldian literatures, it attempts to construct its peculiar theoretical-historical pathway on the relationship between state-coercion-class. It problematizes the historical constitution of this relationship within the context of the historical specificity of the capitalist state power. In this regard, ...
Theorizing "trust" in the economic field in the era of neoliberalism: the perspectives of entrepreneurs in Mardin
Atalay Güneş, Zehra Nurdan; Kalaycıoğlu, Hediye Sibel; Department of Sociology (2012)
This thesis aims to analyze how the global and local relations are articulated within the economic field through trust relations in Mardin. These relations will be explained from actor’s perspectives, with emphasis on the nature of the interaction, through are course to the social and institutional context in which these relations and the economic field are embedded. To this end, a qualitative study, has been conducted during the spring of 2010, using in-depth interviews with 24 entrepreneurs in grain produ...
Ecevit's conception of nationalism: a unique position or a syncretic vision?
Konuralp, Emrah; Ayata, Ayşe; Department of Political Science and Public Administration (2009)
This thesis is the analysis of Bülent Ecevit’s conception of nationalism. It also involves a review of contemporary theories of nationalism and academic works on nationalism in Turkey. The thesis is organised as analysis of Ecevit’s nationalism within time intervals in order to elaborate on the consistency of his conception nationalism along his long political life. The major source for analysis is Ecevit’s speeches in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, his books, articles and declarations. In this sens...
Neoliberal Transformation of the State through the Establishment of Independent Regulatory Agencies : The Case of "Tobacco and Alcohol Market Regulatory Authority" in Turkey
Şafak - Çubukçu, Öykü; Yalman, Osman Galip; Department of Political Science and Public Administration (2012)
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...
Possibility of political emancipation in Nietzsche
Salmanoğ, Özgür; Birler, Reşide Ömür; Department of Political Science and Public Administration (2018)
This thesis analyzes whether political emancipation is possible or not in Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy. In fact, it is an ongoing debate whether Nietzsche is a political thinker. Therefore, despite the fact that the issue of freedom is analyzed in several other places, political emancipation is not analyzed in the literature. Hence, this thesis aims to fill this theoretical gap. Nietzsche’s works have extensive criticisms of modernity. In this regard, firstly, looking at the theories of political freedo...
Citation Formats
B. Yeşilyurt, “Ontological status of neoliberalism: a Critical Realist Marxist approach,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2022.
METU IIS - Integrated Information Service open@metu.edu.tr