SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Turkey's neoliberal economy has evolved into one of the most dynamic among the emerging capitalist societies of the global South since the dramatic 2001 Turkish financial crisis, and it has once again become the darling of international financial circles, as it was in the 1980s. The intensification of financial imperatives in Turkey's political economy has also altered the way in which both the economy and the society are integrated into the global financial market. However, Turkey's experiences with financial transformation show some variations with respect to the interpretations of financialization built upon the experiences of advanced capitalism. In conventional neoliberal and neoclassical academic and policy circles, there remains little to no alternative to intensified financial transformation. Critical and Marxian-inspired critiques of financial transformation are in no short supply, evidenced most forcefully in the financialization and crisis literature. The chapter also presents some of the key concepts discussed in this book.