TY - THES
T1 - "A la turca" ways in neo-liberal times: a political economy of Turkey's new state spaces
AU - Tok, Evren
PY - 2005
Y1 - 2005
N2 - This thesis examines the transformation of informal housing settlements, namely the gecekondus (squatters) of Turkey. The main thrust of the thesis is that the gecekondu phenomenon could be understood as an expression of a double movement process, understood in Polanyian terms. The new forms of regulation that the state exerted on gecekondu land had the result of producing a new and dynamic social welfare effect. I illustrate this historically; I argue that gecekondus, of the pre-1980 period represent an articulation of the counter movement of the society as a response to the economic policies of the state formulated around the import substituting industrialisation strategy. The occupation of public land and the construction of illegal housing units by the immigrants have served to protect the livelihood of the society and maintain its social cohesion. The gecekondu areas, during the period of 1960-1980, grew into the communal space where social cohesion has been built, not only between the newcomers and the existing urban population, but also among the immigrants who formed the gecekondu settlements around their ethnic and geographical origin, gaining the nature of “communal spaces.” In this study, it is shown that the state’s response to this phenomenon, especially during the post-1980 period, has been to regulate the land use of gecekondu areas, submerging this regulation process into the rising neo-liberal accumulation strategy, and the hegemonic project based on neo-liberal populism, turning the gecekondu land into “new state spaces.” Consequently, this thesis shows that even though neo-liberalism brought various limitations and substantially diminished the state’s capacity to maneuver, in the Turkish case, the state intervened in the highly dynamic informal spaces, especially in the big metropolitan cities to compensate for the deficiency of the formal social security mechanism and welfare provisions especially in the case of housing.
AB - This thesis examines the transformation of informal housing settlements, namely the gecekondus (squatters) of Turkey. The main thrust of the thesis is that the gecekondu phenomenon could be understood as an expression of a double movement process, understood in Polanyian terms. The new forms of regulation that the state exerted on gecekondu land had the result of producing a new and dynamic social welfare effect. I illustrate this historically; I argue that gecekondus, of the pre-1980 period represent an articulation of the counter movement of the society as a response to the economic policies of the state formulated around the import substituting industrialisation strategy. The occupation of public land and the construction of illegal housing units by the immigrants have served to protect the livelihood of the society and maintain its social cohesion. The gecekondu areas, during the period of 1960-1980, grew into the communal space where social cohesion has been built, not only between the newcomers and the existing urban population, but also among the immigrants who formed the gecekondu settlements around their ethnic and geographical origin, gaining the nature of “communal spaces.” In this study, it is shown that the state’s response to this phenomenon, especially during the post-1980 period, has been to regulate the land use of gecekondu areas, submerging this regulation process into the rising neo-liberal accumulation strategy, and the hegemonic project based on neo-liberal populism, turning the gecekondu land into “new state spaces.” Consequently, this thesis shows that even though neo-liberalism brought various limitations and substantially diminished the state’s capacity to maneuver, in the Turkish case, the state intervened in the highly dynamic informal spaces, especially in the big metropolitan cities to compensate for the deficiency of the formal social security mechanism and welfare provisions especially in the case of housing.
M3 - Master's thesis
T3 - Carleton University
ER -