Restructuring of the state-market relations in Turkey: an analysis of infrastructure failures in the transportation sector

Abstract

Investment in transport infrastructure has been a key driver of Turkish economic growth over recent decades. The market has expanded considerably in relation to the state, with the transfer of public goods and services to the private sector and thereby the creation of new spaces of accumulation. This paper engages critical political economy to the analysis of infrastructure failures, assessing transport infrastructures during the massive 2023 earthquakes in Turkey, with reference to public private partnerships (PPP) and public procurement processes. It focuses on three representative cases from the airway, highway and railway sectors to offer insights to connections between the changes in the public procurement policies over time, restructuring of the state-market relations and the impact of this restructuring on infrastructure failures during construction and reconstruction phases. Based on a comprehensive historical empirical inquiry, the paper argues that the infrastructure failures during the earthquakes were driven by: (i) neoliberal market mechanisms of cost- and time-efficiency in prioritising infrastructure investments for development; (ii) new developmentalist goals prevailing the neoliberal principles of transparency, fair competition and impartiality in public procurement processes and (iii) economic patriotism overruling environmental, geotechnical and economic feasibility in projects.