In a nutshell, New Capitalism in Turkey is an analysis of the most recent phase of Turkish modernism in the hands of the newly emerging conservative economic and political actors. Buğra and Savaşkan place Turkey’s unique experience since the early republican era within a broader canvas of global economic developments from the 1980s onwards. Yet the authors try to go beyond simplistic formulations that explain the Turkish case as yet another localized instance of an all-encompassing global class project, instead drawing attention to non-economic factors, especially political processes and cultural encounters, as the primary determinants of the direction of social change. Their key analytical lens in this endeavor is religion, as they trace the role religion plays within the emerging business community as a resource that not only establishes a form of solidarity among the community’s members, but also motivates the latter to adopt and pursue a cultural project to redress state-society relations in line with a socially conservative agenda.
At the outset of the book, Buğra and Savaşkan clarify how they define the main pillars of New Capitalism. They concur with the observation that the state does not necessarily retreat under global capitalism, but rather gains new relevance as a regulatory apparatus in the emergence of new power-sharing models between the state and non-governmental actors in terms of the production and provision of goods and services. Moreover, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) become an especially important vehicle for economic development, particularly in late industrializing societies, with their special role in global chains of production. Finally, religion rises to prominence, especially in capitalist undertakings, as an element of the networking, regulation, and discipline that make up the political and cultural matrix of the New Capitalism. In the rest of the book, the authors set out to demonstrate that the recent economic experience of Turkey under the rule of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) provides a good snapshot of this new global condition, particularly in terms of how Islam becomes instrumentalized by economic and political actors.
For Buğra and Savaşkan, Islam serves as the centerpiece of a discourse that interprets the past as oppression and exclusion by the secular establishment and its proxies in the business community, and as such provides a bonding identity and a vision for rising conservative business groups in the Anatolian heartlands, bringing them in tune with the AKP’s social model with its Islamic characteristics. After briefly discussing how religion was always an instrument of political opposition to the modernization project up to the 1970s, the authors emphasize the significant shift that occurred from the 1990s onwards and by means of which Islam began to be effectively utilized by conservative entrepreneurs as a valuable resource for identity-making, trust-building, and networking. It is thus safe to argue that the authors’ main contribution to the study of Turkey’s political economy in the twenty-first century is their careful analysis of religion’s role in redesigning social and economic institutions and shaping the business habitat during this era.
As the analytical focus of the book moves into the period under AKP rule, the authors meticulously document how the political authority implemented its socially conservative project so as to change society and the business environment. In doing so, they demonstrate that, similar to the broader republican era, the state apparatus under the AKP has also facilitated capital accumulation for emerging business groups, and thus the success of the Anatolian heartlands did not simply and solely depend on their entrepreneurial spirit: government connections, associational maneuvers to mediate tensions, and other non-economic factors have been present to create a conducive environment for business. Even more interestingly, we learn in the book that the main operations of these businesses do not necessarily take place in the same city in which they were established: while they do retain subcontracting connections with smaller firms located in these places, the main companies either move or have the willingness to move to the old industrial centers in order to have better business connections and export opportunities. In this respect, the depiction of the often romanticized humble and family-based “authentic bourgeoisie” vis-à-vis its old, state-sponsored, “parasitic” counterpart does not quite capture the reality.
Toward the end of the book, the discussion shifts to three business associations with Islamic characteristics: the Association of Independent Industrialists and Businessmen (Müstakil Sanayici ve İşadamları Derneği, MÜSIAD), the Association of Anatolian Businessmen (Anadolu Aslanları İş Adamları Derneği, ASKON), and the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (Türkiye Sanayicileri ve İş Adamları Konfederasyonu, TUSKON), all of which emerged as umbrella organizations to represent business groups with Islamic characteristics. Here again, the authors debunk some of the myths about these associations and their members. First, we learn that these associations do not necessarily represent only SMEs, but that some of their members have quite wide-ranging investment portfolios. Moreover, they are not the sole representatives of SMEs. The Association of Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen (Türk Sanayicileri ve İşadamları Derneği, TÜSIAD) has initiated the Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation (Türk Girişim ve İş Dünyası Konfederasyonu, TÜRKONFED) in order to reach out to SMEs in Anatolian cities, and thus has been competing with the other associations to represent the interests of these businesses. Perhaps most important of all, these three voluntary associations not only represent but also shape the interests of their members insofar as they set economic and non-economic objectives for the latter, often in tandem with the political authority’s social agenda and political project. Islamic discourse is operationalized in such a way that “the pursuit of economic interests is carried out in networks with broader non-economic objectives,” (p. 132) such as not being greedy, committing to philanthropy rather than to paying taxes, avoiding conflict between the rich and the poor, and adhering to Islamic principles as the main cement binding those who were, as the interpretation goes, discriminated against in the past because of their religiosity. In this respect, Islamic references in the language of the three voluntary associations not only give a common identity to the members of their network so that they know who to include and exclude, but they also become crucial for avoiding the destabilizing effects of intraclass conflicts that may emerge between these associations.
Another significant contribution of the book is its promise to reveal the dynamics of state-business relations at the local level. Based on interviews conducted with several business people in three different cities—Kayseri, Gaziantep, and İzmir—Buğra and Savaşkan claim that these relations are often reflections of political cleavages at the national level, and are mediated by local actors utilizing the aforementioned Islamic discourse. While the considerable decline of İzmir as a main exporting zone is often associated with the city’s conflictual relationship with the AKP government, the differences between Kayseri and Gaziantep in terms of the harmony and calm present in their business environments are explained by local dynamics. By emphasizing the widening cleavage, if not animosity, between business groups belonging to different associations—particularly due to the closeness of some business groups to the Gülen movement, now considered the primary enemy by the AKP government—the authors paint a more fragmented picture of the “Muslim bourgeoisie” than the more common one, which often depicts it as a monolithic bloc.
It is at this point that the book runs into several problems, turning its strengths into weaknesses. First, while the authors emphasize that the picture at the local level is more complex than it is often considered, and that even different “emerging” cities have different levels of ease and harmony as regards business undertakings, the book falls short in demonstrating that there are indeed different and clashing groups within the Islamist camp, or that any one group receives preferential treatment from the government above others. The reader is left wondering, for instance, how Kayseri was able to emerge as a successful city with the tensions businesspeople have to endure there, as compared to businesspeople in Gaziantep where, we are informed, certain local actors take the lead in order to avoid internal conflicts. The authors do not convincingly tie these local variances to a more systematic phenomenon related to the delicate dynamics between the associations and the government at local and national levels.
Similarly, some of the other reasonable claims of the book, such as how religion functions as a network resource among conservative businesses at the local level, are not fully substantiated. For instance, despite interesting arguments about the voluntary associations’ agenda-setting power over their constituencies, the availability of the evidence used in the book to bolster these claims remains inadequate. We learn from the authors that they interviewed businessmen who were members of these associations, yet there is no complete list of these interviews, nor can the reader know whether these interviews were held with current or former officials of these associations. There is no comprehensive supporting evidence in the book, not even in the form of anecdotal testimonies by the interviewees, that the voluntary business associations have indeed been instrumental in successfully shaping the worldview and conduct of their members. The authors do not share direct quotes from the interviews, though it would have been interesting to hear real voices so as to be able to chart the business community’s mental map, as well as their understanding and interpretation of the business environment they are in.
All in all, New Capitalism in Turkey stands out with its emphasis on the role of non-economic factors, and especially of the political and cultural dynamics that connect state and business actors around a carefully crafted religious identity, in the emergence of new patterns of capital accumulation in Turkey. Buğra and Savaşkan carefully identify elements of change and continuity in the history of state-business relations since the early republican era, with an eye on the global macrostructural changes in the capitalist system as well as on more local developments, such as the rise of political Islam. While the book could have benefitted considerably from a systematic analysis of the different phases of neoliberalism since the 1980s—not only to better flesh out the underlying factors in the peculiarity of state-business relations under the AKP rule, but also to allow for global comparisons with other late industrializing societies going through similar changes—it nevertheless is a welcome contribution to the literature on Turkish political economy.
