Unorthodox liberalism, democracy, and post-liberal distributional coalitions : the case of Turkey

Abstract

Following the gradual restoration of democracy between 1983 and 1987, Turkey started to manifest signs of unorthodox liberalism. Tau le, capital, price liberalization, and export expansion went hand-in-hand with macroeconomic imbalances: high inflation, large budget deficit, and public debt. These features reestablished the Turkish state as the center of distributional coalitions under party democracy. Tins paper argues that the Turkish state elites sustained further liberal reforms and export expansion under democracy in response to distributional pressures exerted by their electoral constituencies. Accordingly, the motive for further reform way the creation bra productive basis for the delivery of side payments.