A Reassessment of Turkey’s Import Substitution Strategy: Bureaucracy, Politics, and the International Organizations

Authors : Emrah YILDIZ

Pages : 599-623

View : 27 | Download : 36

Publication Date : 2020-12-31

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :Following the years of WWII, Turkey and many developing countries performed import substitution industrialization strategy (ISI) on the advice of the International Organizations. These countries expected that the ISI strategy serve their longing desire to build a national industry. In Turkey’s case, the policy implementation was conducted under the guidance of five years development plan was prepared by the State Planning Organization (SPO). Initially, the ISI strategy covered the optimistic expectations and Turkey’s economy showed unprecedented economic performance during the ISI period. However, the economic growth came to an abrupt end in the late 1970s and Turkey became dependent on foreign resources than ever before. This study aims at clarifying the questions of why Turkey shifted its policy paradigm to the ISI strategy and the role of the SPO in the ISI period referring to the literature on the developmentalism and the developmental state. From this perspective, this study illustrates the discrepancies between the SPO and its counterparts in Japan and East Asian countries and the question of why Turkey could not shift its inward-oriented economic growth model to the export-oriented growth model.
Keywords : Import substitution industrialization, Development, Developmental state, the State Planning Organization