Crisis, Depoliticisation and Repoliticisation in the European Periphery: Reflections from Hungary and Turkey

This paper aims to explore the increasing trend towards and resulting broader impacts of governmental politicization in Hungary and Turkey in the context of the post-2008 transformation of the political discourses and policymaking processes in central banking and central bank-state relations. Hungary and Turkey represent two country cases in the periphery of Europe across the Central and Eastern European and Southern European axis (despite the differences in terms of EU membership status) that have gone through a substantive restructuring in the pre-2008 context in line with both the framework of (post-)Washington consensus and subsequent EU accession requirements. These processes have introduced the depoliticized forms of governing in both countries in the state and decision making structures. It was particularly evident in the restructuring of economic management one of the crucial elements of which was central banking as a key node of restructuring the totality of social relations. The emergence of the global crisis from 2008 onwards, however, has impacted on the development of a reverse process of re-politicisation towards a clearly visible ministerial control over central banking in the Hungarian context and the intensifying discursive attempts to politicize monetary policymaking in the Turkish context without necessarily being reflected as evidently in policymaking process and structures. Similarly in both countries the process has been going hand in hand with the entrenchment of increasingly authoritarian discourses and practices in various other issue and policy areas. The paper aims to explore these similarities and differences in these country contexts and the broader social and political impact of these processes within a critical framework and make an empirical contribution in advancing the existent research in this field by focusing on the periphery of Europe.