Decentralization through the Welfare State: the case of early Turkish welfare state policies

Turkish welfare formal and informal policies and its historical trajectory have long been analyzed through examinations of post-WWII global market dynamics, client-patron relations in regards to vote-buying, or as the “rational/irrational” precursor to its current more institutionalized, neoliberal form. A topic less explored, however, is how much these policies have resulted in a centralization or decentralization of state power. While all approaches help us understand welfare policy transformation in Turkey, they tend to ignore the power dimensions involved in welfare formation, thus missing out on larger, more general discussions on state power. Indeed, welfare state policy represents one facet of power relations between state and society, as it both determines and shapes the nature of power distribution between groups. In this paper, I seek to determine the power dynamics of Turkish welfare state policy, bringing together historical and sociological analysis of Turkey’s early informal welfare policies from the Turkish Republic’s founding in 1920 to after the introduction of the multi-party elections in the 1950’s. Through this analysis, I find that the informal welfare policies at the start of the Republic entailed a decentralization of power away from state structures because they empowered peripheral elements’ control over political parties, leading to future emphasis on policies that had to cater to the periphery if the center was to retain its power. First, the paper will recount previous historical analyses of the Turkish welfare state, identifying trends in the discussion of Turkey’s welfare state and place them within broader discussions within welfare literature. It will then be followed by my own historical analysis, in which I emphasize the continuity of these informal welfare state policies from previous Ottoman and Republican eras, and the “accidental” empowerment of peripheral groups of peasants through their enactment. My conclusion will then deconstruct the importance of these decentralizing tendencies for contemporary Turkish politics, especially in regards to state power in today’s increasing neoliberalized world.