The New Regime of Free Trade and Transnational Capital in Turkey

Abstract

Based on the philosophy of internal relations, this study examines the dialectical relationship between internal and external factors, which shaped the emergence and transformation of transnational capital in Turkey. The study examines the expansion of global free trade through uneven and combined development, which derives its forms of existence and contradictions from historically specific social formations. This study uncovers how the expansion of global free trade with the so-called 'emerging powers' can be understood with specific reference to transnational capital in Turkey. It then argues that unevenness is always created at the global and regional level and shows how the state and transnational capital in Turkey have combined with global imperialism to produce the current phase of capitalism in Turkey. It suggests that global free trade deepened the time- and scale-based unevenness between the different fractions of capital in Turkey, which has given an uncontested hegemony to transnational capital over other capital fractions. In conclusion, it examines the impact of the global economic crisis, which started in 2018 and intensified with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 on the operations of the state and transnational capital in Turkey.