 Okay, I think we can start now and I'll first introduce our speaker for this session in the Tuesday lecture series organized by the Saas Middle East Institute and it's my great pleasure to introduce this evening, Professor Wilent Goeke, who is a professor of international relations at Keel University and is the founding editor of the Journal for Global Fault Lines. He's the author of many books, writing articles, and the rest among which, among the books you have a clash of empires, Turkey between Russian Bolshevism and British imperialism. So we start from history here, the politics of Caspian oil, another book that came out 20 years ago, Soviet Eastern policy and Turkey, Soviet being the Soviet Union. So until the end of the Soviet Union, this is again a historical perspective and holy alliance, Muslims and Communists in post-transition states, which is co-authored by Wilent Goeke and came out 10 years ago. And then two years ago, another co-authored book, The Disintegration of Euro-Atlanticism and New Authoritarianism, Global Power Shift, that's with Vassilis Fouskas from the University of East London. Wilent will be speaking for something like 45 minutes, presenting his book, maybe also telling us how he moves from history to economy, because the book he will be presenting this evening, Turkey in the global economy, is one of, I mean, is a study of the present, well, with some historical perspective, of course, of the Turkish economy since the turn of the century under the Hakape rule, which is today very much in the news with what is happening with the Turkish economy and the Turkish currency. So, Wilent, please, your turn, and thank you very much for being with us. Thank you, Gilbert, and thank you, Source Middle East Institute for inviting me. First of all, I just must say that this is not an economy book, it is a book about a global political economy of Turkey from a historian's perspective. And now in the next half an hour, 45 minutes, I'm going to try to explain to you my methodology and certain aspects of the book. This book examines the transformation of Turkey over the past two decades. In laying out this trajectory, the book deploys two optics. On the one hand, it offers a broad view of Turkey in the context of what we refer to as the global shift of economic and financial power from the developed west to the countries of the global east or global south. This shift is most apparent in the emergence of the brick quartet, but also this book argues that it opened vital avenues for other middle-range emerging powers. So, at the same time, the book also provides a more granular focus on the political and economic transformation of Turkey itself. This book took the form of a wide-ranging analysis of various aspects of this transformation in the last 20 years. So, these external and internal processes are examined against the backdrop of a domestic political scene in Turkey dominated by the party of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, AK Parti, who also has advanced the neoliberal agenda while co-opting traditionalist Islamist elements into Turkey's ruling elite. So, this is the period from the Turkish financial and economic crisis of late 2000 and early 2001 to the year of 2020. While Turkish economy was experiencing some growth in this period, major changes were being witnessed in the world economy. The process of the decline of the Havan spoke system of global imperial governance that was built under the hegemony of the United States and bound together North America, Europe, Japan and Australasia began in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but became much more obvious during the 2000s and in the early years of the 21st century. So, the expansionist dynamic within the global capitalist system makes it extremely sensitive to both the rise of new growth centers and to new growth zones or new growth geographies, whose rapid economic growth makes them powerful magnets for investment for the global companies. In the late 19th century, for instance, the United States was a dynamic new growth center, attracting very high levels of investment from Europe, especially from Britain. In the immediate post-1945 period, Western Europe and Japan became the new growth centers during the recovery phase after the Second World War. Since the 1980s, East and Southeast Asia have become a new growth center. As a result, from the 1990s, the hegemonic position of the United States came to be seriously undermined by the rise of China, India and other emerging economies. So, in this book, I analyzed the dynamics that caused Turkey's domestic political economic transformation in the 21st century. And this is one dimension of the book. And on another level, the impact that long-term global shifts and trends have had in terms of creating right conditions for medium-sized regional powers like Turkey to increase their influence regionally and globally during this period also is analyzed in this book. In other words, this is an account of how Turkey fits into the global system as an emerging middle-sized power. Since the beginning of the 1990s, with the rapid rise of the emerging economies, the relative rate of the United States and West European economies is plainly declining. As an integral part of this process, Turkey has emerged as an important regional middle-sized power, fitting in within the subset that is just below the brick economies. Therefore, it makes sense to look at Turkey's political economy transformation within the context of the broader global political and economic changes and systemic shifts of the past 20 years. This period, as I mentioned earlier, was dominated by one political party, the AK party, Justice and Development Party and its leader, Tayyip Erdogan. Indeed, the crisis in 2000-2001 was also the crisis that prepared the ground for the success of the AK party, which came to power following the November 2002 general elections. The AK party's success and popularity after 2002 are closely linked to the economic performance of the country during most of this period. Turkey underwent multiple transformations, some more advanced than the others. It does not necessarily consist of a linear progress on a well-trodden path. There are ups and downs, but over the long period, Turkish economy and Turkey's influence regionally and internationally increased. Understanding such economic progress requires a longer-term period of preparation. Restructuring and development, which needs careful consideration and analysis of multiple factors. Several mainstream historical and political economy accounts consider that Turkey will sit alongside other big emerging market economies as early as 1990s. Such projections were based on the population dynamics, growth potential, and geographical capacities of the states. Thus, technically speaking, the AKP government cannot take all the credit for creating the conditions that led to the growth of Turkey's economy in this period. Thus, the question here is to what extent can one connect the growth of Turkey's economy and the increasing influence in the regional and international politics to the performance, decisions, and policies of the AKP regime? Or can one simply say that the AKP government found itself in the right time and right place and did not, in fact, create the conditions that led to the country's economic growth? As a historian of global politics, I am interested in connections, comparisons, and long-term trends. Geographically, during the past four decades, the global economy has become increasingly multipolar. New centers of production have emerged in parts of what had been historically the periphery and semi-periphery of the world system. A deeper understanding of this process requires a wider and long-term historical perspective, which provides a spectrum to reveal interconnections between local, regional, international, and national factors and global forces that the Turkish economy is subjected to. So this book places Turkey's transformation in this period in world historical perspective. My perspective here is unashamedly globalist and comparative, in the sense that we need a global perspective to appreciate, understand, account for, explain, in a word, perceive the rise of Turkey as an emerging economy in the 21st century. To do this, a globalist perspective is essential because without looking at the global jigsaw puzzle map, we cannot find the rightful place or comprehend the real functional relations of any of its pieces, which in this study is the political economy of Turkey. So in this book, I try to present the journey of the Turkish economy since the 2000, 2001 crisis, with a strong emphasis on its changing position and the role within the interstate world system. My premise is that almost all turning points that one can identify during this 20-year period also correspond almost exactly to the important turning points and shifts in the global economic system. More than anything else, this study offers a global political economy analysis of the rise of Turkey as a medium-sized emerging power and looks at its deepening integration into the world economic system through trade and capital flows. This deepening integration into the world system is one of the most important factors to consider when trying to understand this journey of the last 20 years. And therefore it is the central skeleton of my analysis and historically oriented analysis because it is impossible to understand an account for what happened in Turkey without taking account of what was happening in the global system during the same period. Turkey's integration into the global economy in this period means that ups and downs in the world economy are felt deeply and closely in the Turkish economy simultaneously. Simultane unity is no coincidence, which means there is a correlation between different economies in different geographies. For instance, rather than looking at a self-contained Turkish case, when looking at the world system as a whole, we can see similar trends across the world from Mexico to Malaysia and from South Africa to Argentina. The definition of the global shift used in this book is based on Andrei Gundar Frank's 1998 thesis in Reorient. But this shift was first mentioned a long time ago, three decades before Andrei Gundar Frank's Reorient. In 1968, Organskip warned the United States and its allies that China would become the most serious threat to the U.S. supremacy. Organskip further suggested that an alternative power hierarchy which may include other medium-sized regional powers would emerge to challenge the declining dominant power of the U.S. and its allies in the world system. Predicting the remarkable rise of China, Organskip explained the dynamics of the potential power transition from the United States as a declining hegemon to the People's Republic of China as a rising challenger. Later in 1987, at the conclusion of his widely popular study of the global system titled The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Paul Kennedy was probably the first observed to measure the actual beginnings of this global shift. And he said the task-facing American statesman over the next decades is to recognize that broad trends are underway and that there is a need to manage affairs so that the relative erosion of the United States takes place slowly and smoothly. Many other authors, including Mersheimer, later analyzed the changing balance of global power architecture in a similar way. So the rise and decline of powers has always occupied a significant part of the more historically-minded consideration of international relations. According to the calculations of Denny Quay, the center of economic gravity in the world economy shifted from a point in the Atlantic between North America and Western Europe in 1980 to a location in the southeastern corner of the Mediterranean in 2008, a location just south of Izmir, Turkey. So as China regained economic leadership again in the 21st century, the center is now retracing its footsteps towards the east. Extrapolating growth in 700 locations studied, Quay calculated that by mid-century, the global economy's center of gravity will continue to shift east to lie between India, and China. From the late 1990s, Turkey has been considered to be part of a group of fast-rising economies or emerging powers or emerging market economies. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and perhaps South Africa are considered the most significant powers of this group of emerging stars. Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, and Turkey are viewed as next in line after the BRICS. Emerging powers are national economies that are transitioning from a close to an open market system while investing in more productive capacity. They are moving away from their traditional economies that have relied on agriculture and the export of raw materials, and they are growing faster than other developing countries in the world. And emerging power has increased power beyond the borders of the state and possess the capacity for regional and global influence. It typically has a relatively large population, covers a relatively large geographical area, and realizes on average a relatively high level of economic growth about regional and global levels. Although emerging powers are more developed than traditional countries which depend on agricultural products or the importation of raw materials, they do not satisfy the standards of a developed economy. Although economic growth is much higher in emerging economies, they are much lower her capital income. These countries are rapidly industrializing and adapting a free market or mixed economy. The term emerging economy or emerging power is loosely defined by various authors and countries of hugely different sizes and economic powers are often grouped together. Many commentators, for instance, put China and Tunisia in the same category. In short, although all of these new rising powers can be described as emerging economies or powers, they are not all the same. There are vast differences both in size and in influence. In terms of their size, their impact on global economic affairs and also in terms of their possible development projections, one can identify, in my opinion, three distinct groups. The first group is the top group of new super economic powers, China and India. Second group, larger emerging powers, Brazil and Russia. And third tier, strong middle-sized regional powers, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, Nigeria, Philippines, Vietnam and Turkey. So middle-sized emerging powers have started to play a major role as regional power houses and independent actors, some of them, in various areas of local governments. Middle-power activism transformed itself in the 2000s with the expansion of the G8 into G20, a rapidly growing population. Sorry, Bilhent, are you moving some papers because that makes noise. Yeah, if you could have them, yeah, close to the mic. Please, thank you. Okay, so rapidly growing population and sustained economic growth are perhaps the most obvious characteristics of middle-sized emerging powers. So from the existing literature, we can identify the following characteristics of middle-sized emerging economies, lower than average per capita income, rapid economic growth, rapid social change, which often made more volatile by natural disasters, external price shocks and domestic political instability, greater susceptibility to volatile currency swings, such as those involving the US dollar, and less mature capital markets than in the developed markets. So all these components increase the risk, but this also means that there are greater rewards for investors willing to do the ground-level research, which is why they attract investment. Higher than average return for investors can be achieved because many of these economies focus on an export-driven strategy. Emerging middle powers are often states that only emerge as significant regional powers after the end of the Cold War, and their experiences with parliamentary democracy and balanced economic developments are generally more recent, weaker or inconsistent. However, no two emerging economies as mentioned before are the same, and some fit this general categorization and have all the characteristics mentioned, where several others have some and some others have just a few. Turkey is considered by a majority of sources as an emerging middle power, because it has a large and young population, and it has considerable ability to act independently, to resist pressure from great powers, and to exert substantial influence in regional matters. Turkey has significantly increased its presence in international politics over the past two decades, and has sought to extend its global reach. The current situation of increasing rivalry between the rapidly rising China and relatively declining United States provides opportunities for middle powers like Turkey, especially those powers located at strategically significant locations. Zbigniew Buruziozinski sees Turkey like Ukraine, South Korea and Indonesia as a state that is critical to big geo-strategic players, because the Turkish state has the capacity and the will to exercise power or influence beyond its borders. Writing in 1996 in Foreign Affairs, Paul Kennedy, together with Robert Chase and Emily Hill, describe Turkey as a strategically significant country located at a multi-crossroads between East and West, North and South, Christendom and Islam, and has the potential to influence countries thousands of miles from the Bosporus. In the same essay, they describe Turkey's status as a pivotal state. For most of the Republican history, Turkey followed a quasi-studies approach with strict government controls over private sector participation, foreign trade, and foreign direct investment. The state considered industrialization to be the necessary means for transforming the economy and society, and established several state-owned factories in Anatolian towns. However, despite all these efforts before the Second World War, there was hardly any significant industry, and large segments of the population were still living in the countryside. Turkish economy was heavily dependent on external sources for financing of its development policies. All this mirrored many other developing nations' experiences. Former colonies and semi-colonies all followed a similar route, relying on outside financial help and technological assistance. The global situation of the developed economies started to change towards the end of 1960s and early 1970s. And with this, the fortunes of the developing economies too, like Turkey, because of their heavy dependence on them. Neoliberal restructuring, export-oriented pro-broad policies with external borrowing, was introduced in Turkey in two separate cycles. The first with the 24 January 1980 economic liberalization package of Turgut Azal, and the second in 2001 as a response to 2000-2001 crisis, banking and currency crisis. Massive financial loans accumulated in international bank deposits, thanks to the recently increased price of petroleum around that time. A surplus of petrodollars worth approximately 80 billion dollars earned by oil-rich Middle Eastern states flooded global money markets. In other words, the supply of world money and access to credit expanded tremendously for those countries in deficit, enabling them to borrow almost indefinitely. So eight months after the 24 January 1980 reform package was introduced in Turkey, a military coup abolished the democratic process, closed all political parties and unions, and took full control on 12 September to prepare the ground for the speedy implementation of neoliberal reforms by suppressing all opposition. The coup was a response to the economic impasse and the political chaos that was connected to the economic crisis as well. It was the military rule that paved the way for the requirements of this neoliberal economic policy package, and this was similar to the experience of Chile seven years earlier in the context of the heyday of the Washington Consensus. Before the coup, attempts to impose such conditions had been rejected by the mass demonstrations and widespread workers' strikes in Turkey. But after the coup, the military dictatorship led by General Kenan Evren eliminated all possible protests by arresting tens of thousands of people. Hundreds were killed or disabled and the country was completely silenced. General Evren explained in 1991 how he saw the role of the coup with respect to the neoliberal restructuring measures. He says, I quote, if we had not intervened after the 24 stabilization package, I have no doubt that none of the economic reform proposals could have been implemented. Only when we, the army intervened and provided stability, the conditions became ready for the implementation of the program. Between 1980 and the end of the 1980s, it's fair to say that the economy of Turkey was successfully integrated into the world economic system. But when the global economy started to experience some serious setbacks in the 1990s with intense financialization and the emergence of serious competition from the Southeast Asian economy's manufacturing exports, Turkey's economy faced productivity gaps, which were too big to compensate by relying on speculative short-term capital alone. And this soon resulted in a fully-fledged financial crisis in late 2000, early 2001. 18 months before this crisis hit the country, hit the economy, a massive earthquake shattered the heart of Turkish industry as well. The provinces most affected accounted for 80% of countries' industrial production, including Istanbul. This massive earthquake intensified the fundamental volatilities of the economy in the summer of 1999. So the crisis 2000, 2001 came on top of this. The 2001 crisis was the beginning of a new phase in Turkey's experimentation with neoliberalism. Now with the new and more drastic set of measures, in particular in the field of regulatory reform and a new emphasis on export-led growth, the economy of country came much more in line with the directives of the IMF and the World Bank. The crisis of 2000, 2001 had some very significant political consequences too. After the rapid erosion in credibility of the governing coalition parties in the elections November 2002, the AK party established just a year before won the elections with an overwhelming majority. The former governing parties all recorded less than 10% of the national threshold and were no longer represented in the national assembly. So this is how everything started for the AK party at the beginning of his 20-year period. And during this period if you look at the processes, the political economy and political processes happened, two parallel processes affected Turkey's position in the world economy. First the global shift has been changing the parameters of the worldwide conditions of trade, finance and growth. And secondly there has been a further neoliberal transformation of Turkish economy with the new political party, AK party. So in a real sense the neoliberal transformation of Turkish economy within the context of global shift is the story of Turkey's massive transformation of the last 20 years for better or for worse. In parallel to this economic transformation, the coming to power of this new political party, AK party at the beginning of this period represents the development of an alternative segment of Turkish polity with the historic potential of co-opting Islamist elements into Turkey's ruling body. The main question which this book tried to answer is to what extent Turkey's economic transformation in this period was the result of this new political orientation? Or in other words was this economic process the consequence of AK party's Islamic political vision? During this period of 20 years Turkey provides an excellent example of how global developments, changing positions of power and rankings, as summarized by the term global shift, have influenced a middle-sized regional power and have created the conditions both economically and politically that were needed for it to change from being a static and dependent economy to being a rising regional power and influencer on the world stage. Although the country's economy has experienced some serious setbacks and currently experiencing a very serious setback, one after the 2008 crisis for instance and another one triggered by political tensions with the United States in August 2018, it was still described in the mid 2018 and later in 2019 by European Commission as a strategically growing important power in a very important region of the world. So this was from European Commission's 2019 report. However growing economic and social vulnerabilities emerge in the same period, together with an increasingly authoritarian and aggressive political direction, especially after 2013 and as a result a seriously challenging and uncertain picture of the country's future has become apparent. Since 2002 the Turkish economy has developed fast but in many aspects Turkey has remained as a country of contrasts. The past 20 years can be divided into two sub-periods during 2002-2010 period, we can call it the first AKP era, the party was broadly positioned as a moderate Islamist conservative party with a clear intent to revive the failing economy of the country. The Turkish economy improved significantly during this period in particular until the global financial crisis of 2008, through liberalization and reinforcing the country's European Union candidacy, through a series of economic and democratic reforms. The second period from 2009-11 onwards, but particularly and more obviously from 2013 onwards, marked the second AKP period, which was defined by an explicit authoritarian shift. The country's political and institutional environment experienced serious setbacks in terms of both economic reform and democratization. During the second decade of the AKP regime, the party became more and more reactionary and conservative. Several significant incidents marked the increasing authoritarian style of the regime, the Gezi protests of the summer 2013, the intra-Islamist split between AKP and the Gulen movement in late 2013, the presidential election of 2014, failed Kuwait camp of July 2016, and the harsh authoritarian reaction that followed. Although it was still possible to label Turkey a flawed or illiberal democracy before mid-2015, the developments since the June 2015 election, and particularly after the July 2016 Kuwait camp, have led many observers to opt for subcategories of authoritarianism instead. In the eyes of many observers, as a result of these significant steps towards a more authoritarian and conservative level of control, the AKP regime lost its initial reputation as a reformist and democratizing party, and turned into a conservative reactionary political entity with a hardline Islamist ideology. These two images, periods of AKP rule in Turkey, however, should be understood not as diametrically opposed regimes or ruling styles with inherently contradicting modalities of management, but as two interlink modes on the spectrum of an inherently authoritarian, neoliberal conservative governance. This period of 20 years reminds us that the journey of the Turkish political economy followed quite closely a globally rooted typical neoliberal restructuring process. The state's economic policies and domestic policies, as well as its changing foreign relations, were mostly opportunistic responses, reactions to the changing international situation. From its first election victory in 2002, the AKP regime followed a standard neoliberal economic program with a populist cushion that made it possible for the party to keep and even increase its electoral support. During the first five to six years, this was achieved with no difficulty by the introduction of a new welfare regime with a range of social assistance programs and by greater financial inclusivity. Supporting such programs in health, education, and housing was only possible when there was a constant inflow of capital into the country and the economy was growing continuously. After the US Federal Reserve scaled back its easy money policy alongside an interest rates hike as a policy response to the 2008 global financial crisis, the inflow of foreign capital slowed down and stopped, and this put downward pressure on Turkish growth. This all made it increasingly more difficult for the regime to continue its populist neoliberalism. The neoliberal economic model continued in Turkey but with a much more weakened level of populist cushioning. Many of the social welfare programs and the expansion of consumer loans slowed down after 2008 and ended soon after. However, the regime still managed to keep its support among the poor by providing a little more timed carefully just before the elections. But all those critical incidents from the sharply increased pressure upon press freedom in 2011 with dozens of media professionals being detained under vague anti-terror laws to the 2013 Taksim Gizepark protests and the failed coup attempt, they all took place in the context of a global economic slowdown and a continuing global financial and economic crisis. Michael Henry of World Economic Forum summarizes this quite well. He says, all these different countries on different continents with different economic situations and leadership started suffering from the same symptoms at the same time. Why? The short answer is uncertainty over the global economy brought about by the economic management of the global hegemony, the United States. Increasing interest rates, the uncertainty of a trade war with the US putting tariffs on foreign trade including steel and aluminum. Each of these countries had its own economic political story in the sense that immediate triggers for the currency collapse in Argentina, Turkey, South Africa and Indonesia had been all different, but they all share one thing in common. It is proportionate reliance on foreign funding for trade and government deficits. Financial Times also explaining this in a very similar way with the following words. Turkey and other emerging markets remain vulnerable to forces outside their control, particularly the strengthening American economy that has pushed up the US dollar and given the Federal Reserve a freer hand to raise rates. So at the political level, the years following the aftermath of the 2008 global crisis witnessed an increasingly authoritarian search not only in Turkey but in many parts of the world from India to Latin America and from Eastern Europe to North America. Antonio Gramsci wrote in his prison notebooks that the crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born. In this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear. Gramsci was preoccupied with the breakdown and collapse of the liberal order that was the dominant pattern in international affairs after the First World War and in particular he was trying to understand the rise of power of Benito Mussolini in his own country. For Gramsci Mussolini was one such morbid symptom of the interregnum of the interwar period. It seems in the early decades of the 21st century the world is once again living in an interregnum. It is posed between inward-looking old hegemonic powers, the United States and European states and the reluctant new emergent ones, China and other emerging powers. Developments such as razor fences covering Eastern Europe's borders against migrants, militant Hindu nationalism abandoning secularism in Modi's India, the militaristic tactics of fascist Duterte in the Philippines and ultra conservative evangelical Bolsonaro in Brazil are among the many morbid symptoms of all times. So was Trump's isolationism, America's first policy supported by Christian evangelicals both at home and abroad. It was therefore not just a coincidence that Erdogan's regime in Turkey turned increasing the authoritarian during the same period. All of these right-wing populist leaders from Brazil to India, from Hungary to Philippines and from Turkey to Thailand are alike in specializing in aggressive patriotism the defense of an endangered national independence and nostalgia for past glories. Of course in all these countries there are local and national conditions that prepare the ground for such right-wing authoritarian surges. This authoritarian outbreak however is not rooted in the local circumstances, is not rooted in the personalities or psychologies of Trump, Modi, Erdogan or Bolsonaro, but in underlying conditions long-term historical factors that affect the world system and the changing power balance. Bolsonaro, Modi, Duterte, Erdogan, they are less the creators than the outcome of protracted economic, social and political processes. All such right-wing shifts are the result of an increasingly volatile and chaotic international situation which became more emphasized in the aftermath of the 2008 global crisis. This is the direct consequence of a process that Giovanni Araghi has called hegemonic transition within a period of systemic chaos where the incumbent hegemonic state lacks the means or the will to continue leading the system of states. It's obvious that the current juncture represents a particularly dismal chapter in the history of Turkey that displays all the traits of economic crisis and political exhaustion. The problem is not just the AKP or its leader Erdogan. The popular appeal today widespread, especially in Turkey, anyone but Erdogan sounds clear and straightforward but it is not only simplistic but misleading, reducing Turkey's deep structural problems to a simple personal one. The problem for Turkey at this critical point in history is structural and historical. The current political and economic conjuncture is marked by fluidity and uncertainty and rapid changes. This type of context can generate unintended consequences of complexity. The current state of the Turkish economy and policy should be understood in the context of the global rise of right-wing authoritarianism that is itself a consequence of neoliberal restructuring and the global shift. Neoliberal economic governance and right-wing authoritarian leaders and movements are posing serious threats to democracies all around the world. Successful resistance to this toxic mix in one place in Turkey should start by learning from the experience of other nations that have been similarly damaged and not by looking at one country's experience in isolation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much Milen for this presentation of the thesis of your book which is an analysis of the role of Turkey and the position of Turkey in the global power structure but it is also very much focused on the Turkish economy in the global economy and that is also what came out from your presentation. So the questions here speaking to the audience should be written in the Q&A section that you can see on the screen for those who are on Zoom. However, let me act as a discussant since no one manifested themselves yet and get back to the whole presentation. At some point you raised the question and I haven't seen you tackling it, tackling the question you raised about whether what happened in Turkey economically had anything to do with the Islamic dimension of the ruling party. You raised this question at some moment but then you didn't really address it. So how about first addressing this question? Yes, I think just because I try to be selective to get too much time that's why I didn't enter all the details or at least this is just the main argument of my book not the not the details and you are right I asked that question but I didn't say to me AK Party regardless of its ideology and ideology is important because it affects the social and political aspect of Turkey and affects every single citizen's day-to-day life seriously but in terms of neoliberal restructuring of Turkish political economy to me AK Party was and is still a typical bourgeois party with its mix of social cultural religious conservatism and nationalism and AK Party followed a typical neoliberal policy mix and in a way I can compare AK Party's rule in the spirit to the performance of the Mexican regimes or Indonesia or Philippines, South Africa and as you can see there is no common point in terms of political orientation ideology among these regimes but as I try to explain the commonalities of all these different economies how they were if how much they were affected from global shifts equally in the same time they all rely on in their neoliberal restructuring project rely on international capital and especially they are closely tied with the movements of the hegemonic power especially in terms of finance and the class basis of Turkish capitalism change in this period was broadened by incorporating previously small to medium-sized Anatolian companies Anatolian bourgeoisie but now they a number of them became part of the big corporate elite in Turkey so the rise of political Islam in a in a sense did not create any obstacles for the continuation of this neoliberal project neoliberal restructuring in Turkey I think this wasn't this didn't become an obstacle for any reason if the the economic fortunes of Turkish state is changing is going down especially since 2018 onwards but look at the economic fortunes of other similar economies so it's not because of what was who was in power in Turkey it is because of again the the the close dependency of Turkey's economic programs into global shifts global ups and downs yeah thank you so I mean from what you are saying one can infer that basically the the acape rule was more in continuity with the previous developments in the 90s in Turkey in terms of neoliberalism under Turgut Ozil and and basically the key reason for the successes of the early 21st century are related to this availability of funding that was that you described as a result of the rising oil prices so that would be for you that the key explanation this the fact that the Turkish neoliberalism got favorable conditions with the turn of the century conditions of which the ruling party benefited in its steering of the economy so in terms of political economy of Turkish state let's say if a party hadn't existed or hadn't come to power in 2002 and let's say instead of that a let's say center a mildly center right party something like the previous one of the previous parties let's say Adalet party came to power the result the result of the Turkish economy today wouldn't have been much more difficult wouldn't have been much more difficult but maybe on the political orientation of the country and the foreign relations of the country AK party would have made more impact than the the economic orientation of the country but again even this is in line with what's what's happening globally my last paragraph just before I finish I said in this interregnum period there are a number of regimes a large number of regimes from Philippines to to Brazil to Thailand to Turkey to Hungary the like using a mixture of nationalism and conservatism and religious conservatism and all these elements put together and the the the need to remind people and to use this in the propaganda the glorious past days and then trying to present your policies as if you were managing to go back to those glorious days it was also common too in a country where the dominant religion is Catholicism or in a country the dominant religion is Islam there wasn't any major difference in between the performances the language and the orientations of the country right and I put you a final question on my own and then we'll move to the questions of the audience when you describe the the the the authoritarian shift in Turkey as part of a global trend that you relate to the also the economic crisis the global economic crisis and the rest how much is this I mean the the basic reason compared to specific events in Turkey itself including the failed coup of 90 of 2016 which accelerated a lot this authoritarian shift because it allowed the ruling party to to do a lot of shifts in the country change a lot the whole state apparatus and of course that's not something that is in itself the failed coup related to the the global economic condition and how about also the Kurdish factor in Turkish politics and its rise in 2015 which again led to the shift of the ruling party to aligns with the nationalist far right so how how to account for these events well when the economy was growing when the the ruling party was managing a growing economy and in simple terms when the cake was was was bigger but was larger than they were able to follow a more populist and neoliberal policy and in this more populist neoliberal era they were also trying to incorporate as many sections of the population as possible so the opening with the the Kurdish people in Turkey increasing some of the rights and also the negotiations with the European Union along these lines they were all happening in that phase when the neoliberal restructuring was growing the Turkish economy and and the ruling power party was increasing its it is popular as a result of these steps but when the cake was getting smaller and smaller the the area in which they can maneuver became much tighter and and then in the in the attempt to stay in power to eliminate any kind of threat to their regime was become much more a security issue for them but it was before just by providing various openings and various economic and so and so and social investment they were they were able to do this and during this period if you look at the elections they are popular the increase significantly in the first part of the AKP regime okay thank you very much we'll let's now we have a good number of questions which you can also see on your screen so let me start with the first one which is about the geopolitical role of Turkey how would it adapt to well that's very broad question China India and Africa that's too much of a question but let's say focusing on China and the new Silk Road initiative how does Turkey relate to China's policy in this regard do I need to answer it now yes yes please okay I mean this this is a some important sections in the book is about Turkey's changing orientation not a complete 180 degree shift but increasing it is economic and political links and to some extent military links with Russia and China and in this sense yes China relations with China is is getting more and more significant for the Turkish economy in this period again I think Chinese Bertrand Roth initiative provided a very serious opportunities for countries like Turkey I mean this is an investment in in Roth's railroads bridges ports and also manufacturing technologies so Pakistan as far as I know Pakistan got the largest amount of investment in Asia from China but but Turkey as well a number of major projects in in Turkey in almost every single one of them one can see either Chinese capital or or Chinese companies engineering companies playing and running these projects so China increased continuously links with Turkey and Turkish economy for instance since 2015 especially in the second period there has been increasing financial cooperation between Turkey and China the industrial and commercial bank of China acquired a bank in Turkey Turkish textile bank in this year an agreement between Turkish and Chinese central banks agreed to use Turkish lira and Chinese yuan instead of dollars and and euros and in July 2020 just last year people's bank of China extended a swap for Turkish lira for Chinese renminbi valued at 400 million dollars so one Chinese logistics company also recently acquired almost 50 percent of Kumport terminal Turkey's third largest container terminal a strategic link to Europe so for China Turkey's location is extremely important connecting Asian links to Europe to Eastern Europe and Western Europe and in that sense the the links with China is increasing I mean for instance even that pro pro project which came to be known as the Erdogan's crazy project the something canal Istanbul canal going parallel to the boss force even in that project as you can see serious investment and serious interest is happening by Chinese companies and Chinese capital is there so Turkey's increasing links with China for Turkey this is really significant and and increasing and if you look at the percentage of the trade increase from the beginning of 2000s and up to now it is it is very significant thank you another question is about Russia whether the relation of Turkey with Russia is just opportunistic let's say for political opportunistic reasons or is there something more basic and especially in the economic field well all these relations are opportunistic of course but every side enter into relations for its own interest but at this particular conjuncture especially in the second part of AKP regime the interest of Turkey and the interests of Russia coincided both in regional affairs but also in terms of economy the the the potential is increasing and the actual trade is increasing as well I think both Erdogan and Putin made a number of announcements to increase the trade between two countries at a significant level they haven't reached that level yet but the trend is in that direction and there is also the political links and and and military links as well despite ups and downs and serious problems still exist between two sides I think we can easily say that it is not a matter of Turkey is moving away from the west to the east but Turkey is increasing it is engagement both economically and politically and militarily with Russia and with China for instance Erdogan serious really serious about being a member of full member of Shanghai cooperative organization and and Turkey Turkey's status improved there as well and Erdogan explained this several times around 2015 2018 he made a number of speeches to the press saying that this is where we are looking at now Shanghai cooperative organization but this none of this also should be interpreted Turkey completely left the west Turkey completely left the Europe and and United States Turkey is still in those engagements but the the links with the east increasing consistently and this is a trend and one can speculate on that that probably in 10 years time the Turkey will be a more significant Eurasian power rather than coming closer to Europe right so let me then link to that more general question because we're speaking of Russia and China but after all Turkey has the closest links with the European Union so how how did the European Union kind of closing its door to Turkey's accession contribute to determining what you are describing I don't think European Union completely closed its doors to Turkey's accession but both for Turkey and for Europe the periods after 2008 it wasn't a priority for Turkey it wasn't a priority to be a member of European Union and because after 2008 Turkish economy managed to some extent to compensate it is the losses in terms of its trade with the rest and expanding it is links with with the Asian countries and African countries for instance Turkey increased substantially it is linkage with various African countries in that period and and after 2015 the links increased even further and even during the current coronavirus crisis the Turkey also is taking a number of significant steps in terms of being a location and for a number of major major productive sectors supply chain so for instance European bank for reconstruction and development just I think last month made a statement saying that one of the important consequences of this pandemic is the disruption of the global supply chains and Turkey is one of the few countries who can benefit from this because of the location and because of already existing infrastructure in order to move some of these geographically long locations into Turkey for a number of European and West European economies right one person in the audience is asking about you know there's a lot of talk with the COVID economic crisis and the rest that there is a shift away from neoliberalism and return of the state and is asking well do you think this is something happening in Turkey I mean is there can we say that there is a shift away from neoliberalism in the Turkish economic policy but I personally don't see a shift away from neoliberalism globally the the the responses of the main powers the major western powers to the crisis is very neoliberal and that is also the the root of the the failure of providing safety and security for the citizens when we look at which countries really failed in this context in in terms of the casualties in terms of the suffering and not providing enough initiatives all those extreme neoliberal economies suffered more than the others I mean starting with the UK in this country and a number of West European countries United States Brazil in a way neoliberalism made those countries vulnerable in terms of health investment infrastructure and this is why when the crisis happened the countries couldn't respond effectively but when we look at a number of other countries and to see let's say China Vietnam or when we look at New Zealand South Korea but these countries they are not neoliberal in the same sense or or neoliberalism wasn't imposed in the same extreme way for instance New Zealand is one of the few countries which suffered very little and provided exceptionally good protection for the citizens and just a few years before the health crisis hit the world they moved away from neoliberalism in many aspects and they made huge investments in terms of health sector and that that became important for for for the countries providing protection in Turkey no I don't think this is making any impact the Turkish elite political and economic elite is following currently the same neoliberal measures and relying on the same neoliberal institutions I don't think this this current crisis taught them a lesson in this sense thank you let me read you on another question with the ongoing and increasing moves to criminalize the HDP are the avenues for legal parliamentary resistance to the AK Party regime closing and do you see the likelihood of a return to extra parliamentary resistance as seen in the 1970s I I think this is a very worrying development and in the conclusion of my book and which was of course which was written more than a year ago I was talking about the current conjuncture is very serious and problematic in Turkey and the the next step will be probably a much more authoritarian regime being established and what we see since then especially the very recent developments those attempts to to to close HDP and then abolishing Istanbul agreement which to protect to to protect women against violence and and Turkey is now moved away from that and and also currently they are trying to to bend the HDP I yes I think they are unfortunately in line with what I predicted and I wouldn't be surprised if HDP is is bent in near future and I don't see any parliamentary or democratic resistance effective resistance emerging against these more authoritarian steps and this is also another reason why we need to look at the global picture a number of these leaders from Erdogan to Bolsonaro or or the leader of Hungary and Philippines they are looking at similar leaders of the great powers like Putin for instance in Russia and the tendency and the trend is in the same direction in all these countries I think this is unfortunately and I'm afraid that these are the results globally and historically results also we are going through this interregnum period and these are morbid symptoms and these are not just exceptional things these are the direct results of the current ongoing global crisis of transition and I am not sure how long it will last but there is no easy solution to this there is no easy answer to this thank you well in relation to that there is a question about again about the political conditions which says don't you think that the a cafe was able to capitalize on the lack of coherent policies of the CHP and the legacy of at the Turks attempt to modernize and remove Islam from mainstream life of Turkey you read the question well CHP is so far proved to be very ineffective in terms of providing any alternative to the current regime led by AKP and in this sense I can't see any serious opposition as I said answering your previous question I can't see any serious legal political opposition in Turkey coming from either CHP or any other political party that are a number of smaller parties recently established by former members of AKP again I think that I look at their policies their program proposals I can't see any real serious major alternative in any of them so the second part of your question is more complex it's about the history of Turkish state and the ideology of Turkish nationalism and yes I think the reason why this Islamic elements colored around political parties including AKP since 1950s in Turkey is directly related to the previous policies of Turkish governments kind of a harsh secularism and putting harsh policies to prevent to stop Islamist elements to appear in the in the public life which created a reaction under the ground and once they were once they found an opening since then the the Islam is a particular significant factor in in wider Turkish people and Turkish nationalism and currently we see this interpretation of Sunni Islam an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam and extreme Turkish nationalism come together in the current state of AKP this is probably the most effective in terms of mobilizing large number of people in Turkey but also most effective in terms of stopping all kinds of democratic and liberal openings in the society right thank you a question about the import the economic importance of the removal of the military tutelage by the AKP in in Turkey what what what how important it is for the economic context of the last period but I personally didn't study the the economy is the the army's economic power I know a number of major complexes and major investments controlled by the army previously but I am not sure how significant it was in the wider Turkish economy I think the the stopping the army's power eliminating the army's power for AKP in my opinion was more important politically so they basically they manage and the last attempt was probably 2016 coup attempt and they manage completely eliminate any possibility any potential of intervention by the army because that was almost like almost like an official threat above all the governments in Turkey I mean since 1960 the Turkish political system experienced three military coups so every time the regime the and there was some kind of chaos some kind of crisis or or the political the power moved a little bit ahead of the established system the army intervened so that that was also the fear in the back of the mind of the AKP rulers and leaders and since the point when they came to power they were taking certain steps I think first against a number of generals and they they eliminated them they replaced them one by one but the finally 2016 and I think 2016 attempted coup which was I think described by Erdogan something from the gods I mean some gift from the gods so that provide them the final opportunity to eliminate any kind of opposition and I can't see any possibility whatsoever army coming back again and providing a significant force in Turkish politics right two questions about the the ongoing currency crisis the currency depreciation and I mean how do you assess asks one member of the audience Erdogan's most recent decision to fire the the head of the central bank after I mean this head of the central bank having raised interest rates and so how about Erdogan assessing the the the consequences of his acts at this specific juncture thank you I think this is yeah this is very current and as you can guess I didn't talk about this in my book my book finished in august last year but when I look at what is happening in the global economy global finance at the same time when the turkey is experiencing this serious currency crisis Mexico's peso south african rand eastern european currencies they are also experiencing serious troubles and most stock markets in latin america were also hit brazil and russia joined turkey in rising interest rates in order to control inflation and similarly in malaysia in tailand south africa and some latin american countries domestic policy uncertainties and social stability risks also were important factors to to make the crisis even worse just like in turkey Erdogan's decisions to intervene personally and his obsession with just stopping the the head of the central bank from from dealing with the interest rates all right at the moment turkey among the emerging economists turkeys probably has the highest dependence on external funding and this was the main reason why turkey is in this in this crisis and again when I looked at the the current crisis try to understand I was reading in the turkish press yesterday and this morning I saw especially members of or leading members of some of the new political parties I think one of them was a minister in the rkp government and now he's the leader of a party and he was kind of trying to explain all the crisis with personal failures of Tayyip Erdogan and saying that we have in our party the most experienced economists experts and if we were in power we would have sorted this out I think this is quite naive and this is just just looking get inside without considering why the crisis emerged in the first place so I think my answer is this I think the this is this is happening in a number of places but in certain countries the crisis was even more extreme because of the policy uncertainties political interventions and and social stability risks and turkey is one of these probably the the country where this is currently experienced more than the other places right well we are reaching the the end of the time maybe very briefly a final question and of course sorry for me there are suddenly a lot of questions that came up on the the screen so we won't be able to take them all but just a final question about the the impact of of migration the fact that the turkey has become a migrant receiving country how has this impacted the the Turkish economy this the migration from Syria is of course I think it is very significant it is a very significant in terms of Turkey's social and demographic balance already changing already and balance state of Turkish society suddenly found itself hosting a large number of largest number of Syrian migrants in the land and this economically costed the state but I think if we manage to calculate I hope one day someone will calculate this some economists measure not only how much the state spent this is easy this is the this is the easiest part we know these figures the state regularly gives this but actually those individual Syrian men and women in Turkey majority of them are part of the economy contributing to economy many of them were under extreme exploitation because many Turkish companies small large they are exploiting the situation I'm paying them very little but I haven't seen any calculation of this well I think in long term the contribution of these migrants to Turkish economy should be higher than the expenses state put in place but for me just it wasn't part of the question but I would like to say this because for me the most important part of this Syrian migration my disappointment with the people of my country these people escape from the war under horrible conditions and they left their lives some left their children their their family members and they they that was the next place to their home to their country and they had to escape and and Turkey not only the state state failed to a large extent because provided accommodation proper conditions only a small section of them but also the wider population look at Turkish media every single day and it is continuously all the time I mean not today not last year but all the time every single day you can see several racist seriously or racist incidents against them I mean people normal people they attack them they burn their houses just yesterday I saw I saw on Twitter one young Syrian man working as a working with his motorbike small moped doing some distribution from a supermarket or a restaurant just to feed his family and he was attacked by the local man and they they seriously eat him and and they destroyed his motorbike and then they were proud of this and people also talking that oh we did this we are proud of this I think this is the most significant failure of this phase for me I am extremely disappointed and feel ashamed of my own people my own country because we Turkish people traditionally used to say that oh we are so we are so good in terms of welcoming all the foreigners we look after them so well I don't think so I think we failed this from now on we shouldn't repeat any of those sentences I mean looking after did these people be completely fails thank you thank you will end very much for this also a exemplary insertion of the analysis of a country in the global context and that was very important in reminding us that analyzing any national economy nowadays is not something possible without taking into account the the global context I mean every everybody speaks of globalization well we are very much in it and your book and your presentation were a very clear illustration of that so thank you again very much for for being with us I mean everybody of the book Turkey in the global economy at the agenda publishing excellent reading very much recommended to everybody and so again thank you very much thank you for inviting me I really enjoy talking to you and audience thank you I think maybe quickly we can add that will be off air for four weeks and then we'll be back on 4th of May as the so we hope our audience will come back thank you very much professor okay thank you thank you