LOCAL ENTREPRENEURIALISM, STATE RE-SCALING AND SCALAR STRATEGIES OF REPRESENTATION: The Case of the City of Gaziantep, Turkey by Mustafa Kemal Bayirbag A thesis submitted to The Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Public Policy and Administration Carleton University Ottawa, Canada February 2007 © Mustafa Kemal Bayirbag Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 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ABSTRACT This study examines the links between the recent rise of localities as significant and strategic loci of policy-making and the changing place of the capitalist state in political economy and its spatiality. The city of Gaziantep, located in the Southeastern part of Turkey, constitutes its empirical focus. Gaziantep started to industrialise rapidly from the 1980s onwards, a period during which neoliberal policy reforms began to be implemented in Turkey. This led many scholars and policy-makers to see Gaziantep, and similar cities called Anatolian Tigers, as a successful model of local entrepreneurialism, which replaced the state’s active involvement in economic development. Benefiting from the scale literature, urban regime theory, and studies on business associations, this study offers an alternative explanation, especially emphasizing the political dimension to local entrepreneurialism. Neil Brenner’s conclusion, that entrepreneurial local governance is a medium and expression of the re­ scaling of the capitalist state constitutes the departure point. The thesis argues, however, Brenner’s emphasis on the changing spatiality of the state has to be supplemented by investigating the emerging forms of representation of this re-scaled state. Thus, the concept “scalar strategies of representation” is introduced to examine in what ways the broader state re-scaling process contributes to the formation of local agency and how this agency influences the state re-scaling. It is shown that the roots of the current local bourgeois activism go deeper into the Keynesian pre-1980 period. State re-scaling in Turkey during the post-1980 era, at best, facilitated the emergence of Gaziantep as an entrepreneurial city. The study also indicates that the growth in the local policy-making capacity comes about also as a result of scalar strategies of representation employed by the local business associations to overcome the obstacles to the local accumulation strategy posed by the national accumulation strategy and the associated state re-scaling. Here, the main concern of these business associations is not simply to bypass these obstacles. They, indeed, seek to re-shape and mould the scalar strategies of intervention and internal organisation of the state to their advantage, and thus are actively involved in the state re-scaling process as state-builders. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Dear Reader, The work you are about to read is the product of a collective effort. Although I did the writing part (the reason for potential factual and theoretical errors or misunderstandings you might come up with), the peer review process I have gone through was a teaching one. The rich and insightful feedbacks I received from my thesis committee, and my dear colleagues from the Ottawa-Carleton Scale Reading Group, helped me to make it to this stage. For me it has been a process of growing up, as a scholar. Professor P. Rianne Mahon (my ‘supervisor), Professor Fran Klodawsky and Professor Lisa Mills were my guiding light. My words would fail to express how much I appreciate the labour they have put into my thesis. Professor Mahon has been my guardian angel, my mentor. A true example to follow as a teacher, and a scholar! Professor Neil Brenner served as the external examiner to this dissertation. His constructive and challenging review of this work will definitely set the path of my future studies. In fact, as an exciting scholar, he ignited the thinking process that eventually turned into this work. Professor Wallace Clement served as the internal examiner to my dissertation. His positive and encouraging comments will help me to build a more careful approach to the analytical categories I deal with. Professor Manfred Bienefeld made very helpful comments on the first two chapters and the introduction chapter of this study. School of Public Policy and Administration, where I have always felt at home since day one, and the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, have been “very supportive” all the way, in every respect. Professor Donald Swartz and Professor Leslie Pal (graduate coordinators, for consecutive terms), and Iris Taylor (our wonderful graduate program secretary) were incredibly helpful during my studies in SPPA. Department of Political Science and Public Administration, of Middle East Technical University (METU), and the Higher Education Council in Turkey provided me with a financial support that made it possible for me to concentrate on my work without worrying much about its financial aspects, during the first four years of my study. My colleagues from METU, and especially Professor Sinasi Aksoy and Professor Tarik Sengul were always there for me, whenever I needed their support. And, I humbly kneel before those wonderful people, “my beautiful friends” (and you know who you are) and my beloved family, who made my life complete, and made me feel good about myself during the ups and downs of this dissertation writing process. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. They became my wings whenever I faced the storm. With their help, with the moral support they gave, I was able to turn the wind, which would otherwise take me down, to a magical force that pushed me to do my best. One last word goes to my beloved Dilek; my wife, the source of my life, whose love and affection, whose beautiful smile has refreshed my soul, has rejuvenated my heart at every moment since the day we met. Whenever I fell down, she was right beside me to hold my hand, to put me back to work. She deserves the most of the credit for the energy that was put into this work. I sincerely dedicate this work to my precious Dilek. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER -1: “Theoretical Foundations” 13 Mainstream accounts 14 Contributions of the scale literature 20 Re-scaling of the capitalist state and the emergence of local 26 entrepreneurialism The agency of capital and the changing face of local politics 40 Business associations, local politics and the state: Emergence of “scalar 54 strategies of representation” Conclusion 65 CHAPTER - II: “The historical context” 68 In search of a national bourgeoisie (1923-1960) 71 The rise of planning ideology and the Import Substituting Industrialisation 91 period (1960-1980) Rise of neoliberalism and Gaziantep’s bourgeoisie (the post-1980 era) 110 Conclusion 117 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER - III: “The case of Gaziantep: Roots of Gaziantep’s local 121 entrepreneurialism” Gaziantep: An examplary achievement of the new economic model? 122 The national accumulation strategy change, re-scaled forms of state 129 intervention, and the roots of the current local bourgeoisie activism in Gaziantep The state re-scaling, emphasised agency of local business associations, and 148 the birth of the scalar strategies of representation Conclusion 155 CHAPTER - IV: “Gaziantep’s Local Corporate Regime” 158 Political mobilisation of the local bourgeoisie 160 The role played by other key local actors in Gaziantep’s corporate regime 191 Conclusion 205 CHAPTER - V: “The scalar strategies of representation: Institutional 209 strategies” The state bureaucracy 210 Political parties 216 The Prime Minister and the cabinet 221 The umbrella organisations 231 Discourses of re-scaling: Reterritorialisation of the “national” 237 Conclusion 241 v i Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.