Discourse of Globalization in Turkish Public Policy

DISCOURSE OF GLOBALIZATION IN TURKISH PUBLIC POLICY

a) INTRODUCTION

The current government of Turkey is one of the most popular governments of modern Turkish history, they get vote from one of each two citizens and their increase continues for ten years. Yet, we see that this government has passed very unpalatable reforms that certainly make life more difficult for millions of people. How can we explain the success of Turkish government in passing these laws without any reaction?

In this paper, I argue that one of the possible explanations may be the way government frames its unpalatable reforms. I argue that AKP government has used globalization discourse and framed it in such a way that political responsibility of unpalatable reforms did not belong them. Their success in framing may have helped AKP not to be seen responsible for these reforms.

As a case study, I have investigated parliamentary debates around the labor law in Turkey. Labor law(Law n. 4857) was one of the biggest neoliberal reforms in Turkey so it is the best place to choose as a case study. I have chosen parliamentary debates instead of other methods because it is the best way to see official party stance on the issue.

I will develop my argument in three steps. Firstly, I will present a literature review. My aim is to show how globalization discourse is constructed by some social scientists and how it is deconstructed by others. I will also present examples from researches similar to my topic. Secondly, I will shortly explain labor law’s history and its regulations to convince you that it was a very important law that should have created reactions from the society. Thirdly, I will present my main research results: the parliamentary debates around the law. Then I will present my conclusions about the issue.

b) LITERATURE REVIEW

Works on globalization may be classified under 3 waves as Palan (2004) puts it. First wave is called “business globalization thesis” and it presents...