Neoliberalism and the Changing Face of Unionism: The Combined and Uneven Development Class Capacities in Turkey by Efe Can Gürcan and Berk Mete (review)

This book aims to explain the actual conditions of Turkey's workforce and their institutional organizations within the context of certain neoliberal political and economic developments. Chapter 1 lays out the main scope of the book that focuses on the peculiarities of Turkey's labor movement's economic and political integration into the neoliberal capitalist accumulation since the 1980s (pp. 2–3). The authors provide a detailed overview of the chapters beginning with the theoretical specifications, periodization of the integration process of Turkey into the world capitalism from a structurally weak position. Next they mention the methodological choices and the empirical ground of this study. They provide a detailed list of semi-structured interviews conducted with the representatives of traditionally combative trade and the social unions in Turkey (pp. 8–9). The authors give a sketch of the collective struggles during neoliberal times both in the Global North and South to show that class as a social category still appeals to scholarly attention. In the last section, they substantiate the prevalence of class-centric focus in Turkey's neoliberalization experience, the prominent working-class firm-level struggles, and popular insurgencies are overviewed.

Chapter 2 contains the theoretical backbone of the book. The authors refer to Leon Trotsky's concepts of combined and uneven development for providing an analysis of Turkey's peculiar process of class formation and articulation to the world capitalist accumulation. The concept of combined development aims to explain the synchronized and strongly bounded integration of particular countries into global capitalism. The unevenness segment of the framework deals with the assumption that the countries' economic path is set against each other and allows privileges for some and impediments for others. The defining feature is to emphasize a peculiar capitalist development wherein backward elements and modern factors coexist.

For analyzing the working class within the country's economic performance, the authors use Erik Olin Wright's concepts of working-class and organizational capacities. Within the combined and uneven development processes, the authors argue that small-scale firm-level concentration of the workforce, geographical discrepancies, welfare policies, privatization, subcontracting, ethnic and religious fragmentations within the working class serve as an impediment both for the structural and organizational class capacities. The last section of the chapter is devoted to the detailed review of the period starting from Turkey's nation-state formation until the implementation of the import-substitution economic agenda. The authors argue that the impact of the World Wars and alignment with the United States in international politics influence domestic political-economic outcomes that created an impediment to the working class's organizational and structural capacities.

Chapter 3 discusses the end of the import-substitution policies that had to be terminated due to the foreign currency shortage and limitations on Turkey's domestic markets. The transition to trade liberalization and the export-oriented economy triggered initial neoliberal restructuring to become possible with military intervention. There has been an exponential growth of export-oriented industries, and the share of exports in the GDP led to a rise in low-skilled, subcontracted, and non-unionized labor in these sectors. The economic crises in 1994 and 2001 were a watershed for the Turkish economy, and their aftermath resulted in harsh wage reductions and further de-unionization for the workforce. The second part of the third chapter deals with the political and economic impacts of the post-2001 period. The three legal ramifications in the labor law deepened flexibilization, subcontracting and curtailment of the right to organize for the working class. Post-2001 is a period when traditional labor unions took a pro-government stance and saw the burgeoning of new government-affiliated trade unions both in the private and public sectors. The privatization of public enterprises also gained pace and resulted in massive...