Privatization in Turkey : Power Bloc, Capital Accumulation and State

In Privatization in Turkey: Power Bloc, Capital Accumulation and State, Ahmet Zaifer offers a rare look at privatization in Turkey that involves all three historical periods of the Turkish privatization process -the 1980s and 1990s, the 2000s, and the 2010s- and covers different forms of privatization from divestiture to public-private partnership. Benefiting from theoretically informed qualitative research spanning nearly a decade that has involved several interviews with key informant groups, extensive review of newspaper articles and detailed analysis of annual reports of businesses, Ahmet Zaifer convincingly proves that the acceleration of privatization in Turkey has not only provided advantages to so-called favourable capital groups and the government elites, but also consolidated the position of Capital in General at the expense of labouring-popular classes and the natural environment of the entire country.

Ahmet Zaifer is Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Kyrenia. He has published book reviews, translations and many articles on privatization and Turkey. Recent articles have appeared in Critical Sociology, Review of Radical Political Economics, and Journal of Historical Sociology.