The Prospects of Egalitarian Capitalism in the Global South: Turkish Social Neoliberalism in Comparative Perspective

This article studies the prospects of egalitarian capitalist development in the Global South through an analysis of the Turkish welfare regime that has emerged during the 2000s. The specific configuration of Turkey’s social and economic policies, a form of “social neoliberalism”, is distinct both from Southern social democracy (e.g. contemporary Chile and Uruguay) and orthodox neoliberalism (e.g. Chile in the 1970s-1980s). In Turkey, relatively orthodox neoliberal economic policies and neoliberal restructuring of social security and labor market institutions (the “protective welfare state”) have been combined with a significant expansion, both in terms of public spending and population coverage, of public health and education (the “productive welfare state”). At the same time there has been a decline of the traditional ersatz welfare state, especially in agriculture and housing. The article proposes to explain the rise of this new welfare regime with reference to coalitional dynamics (involving paupers, business, and international actors) and a politics of inequality that is concerned with providing equal access to public services rather than with reducing income inequality. The article questions the financial and social sustainability of the social neoliberal model. The experience of Turkish social neoliberalism provides an important reference point for similar in-between cases, including Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Africa.