Why Has Support For Free Markets Collapsed in Turkey?
I just came across an interesting poll, thanks to Daniel Drezner. It tracks support the world around for the statement "the free market economy is the best system." Drezner compares responses to this survey in 2007 with those in 2010. He's reassured to see that "on the whole, despite the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression, public attitudes have not changed all that much."
I insert--with emphasis--all the usual caveats about the limits of this kind of polling. But one thing leapt out at me. This document is a PDF, so I can't reproduce the graph, but look at Turkey. In 2002--when the AKP came to power--support for the statement was about 40 percent. (That number is the total of "somewhat agree" and strongly agree.") It leapt to about 55 percent in 2003, and has thereafter seen the steepest, sharpest decline of any country polled--to 34 percent in 2007, and 27 percent in 2010, with only three percent "strongly agreeing."
How are these poll results compatible with the standard narrative about the AKP--one that, for example, Mustafa Akyol has offered in National Review?
There are understandable reasons for the AKP’s continuing success since 2002, when it surprisingly came to power as a one-year-old party, after a decade-long period of political instability and economic disaster. Since the first day of the AKP’s rule, both the Turkish elite and global observers have focused on the level of Islamism in the party’s ranks, although the more visible impact of the party has been the “development” ideal that is in its very name: Over the past eight years, the Turkish economy boomed, and Turkey became a much wealthier country with more highways, airports, banks, shopping malls, industries, and exports.
“If the AKP has an ideology,” argues Michael Thumann, the Istanbul representative of the German weekly Die Zeit, “then that is, first and foremost, capitalism.” But this is a capitalism combined with a high dose of religiosity — a curious mix that which led a German institute named the European Stability Initiative to define the AKP’s base as “Islamic Calvinists.”
That there are more highways, airports, and shopping malls is something anyone can easily confirm. But if these can be attributed to a free-market miracle, as so many assert, why are the Turkish people so deeply disenchanted with free markets?
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Jan '11
Re: Why Has Support For Free Markets Collapsed in Turkey?
Belief in free markets is mostly a seeing-is believing phenomenon: When you see someone doing well with their own business—and you believe you have the freedom to do so—then you will tend to believe that it's possible for you, too, to be such a success. In America we've a long tradition of such individual success, so it's not hard to believe that something as monumental as a shopping mall would be the result of free-market success, instead of some sort of crony capitalism. In Turkey, where you point out quite frequently that any unexplained phenomenon is almost universally and knee-jerkedly attributed to some sort of conspiracy…well, I really don't know. Does anyone there know the owners of these malls personally? Are the owners Turks? Are they foreigners? Foreign companies? Is the financing foreign or domestic? If the average Turk can't see someone they know and trust building a mall with their own blood and treasure, then how are they supposed to believe this isn't something being done to them, instead of by them?
Jun '10
Re: Why Has Support For Free Markets Collapsed in Turkey?
I gather that rural, more-religious, Turks have been moving to big cities over the years, I also imagine it causes a lot of inter-generational conflict, as younger people adapt to city life. It happened in Protestant America. It happens everywhere. For the more religious-minded, spending lots of money on private, or even civic, splendor might be seen as trying to compete with Allah's own beauty of creation, or with the beauty of buildings dedicated to Allah. They probably see people's priorities changing, and the pace of life changing, and many wish things were as before. I guess, even East Germans (some) have nostalgia for the slower pace of life they had before. They didn't have much, but they didn't need much either.
Jul '10
Re: Why Has Support For Free Markets Collapsed in Turkey?
Obviously, you are in Turkey and I'm not. What I hear out of some other countries with Islamists afoot, and heard here in the DC area when I was in contact with Islamists myself, is that Western capitalism is, by its very nature, corrupt. The financial services violate the word of the Prophet, the dominance of commerce is a distraction from Allah's will.
Perhaps in this case it is an expression of tensions between an ostensibly pro-Muslim AKP advancing capitalism while running a secularist bureaucracy that is both somewhat anti-religious in its outlook and lubricated by bribes, always a corruption complaint for bribe payers everywhere, as well as those denied services for want of a bribe. A turn to capitalism may just look like systematically introducing more corruption from an Istanbul street.
Dec '10
Re: Why Has Support For Free Markets Collapsed in Turkey?
I have a loose thesis that capitalism gains much from the mix of a devoutly religious population and a secular government. The inherent mistrust that exists between the two keeps government small, providing an opportunity for industry to thrive. The devoutly religious population regulates its own excesses with public shame, while spurring on productivity and charity through moral obligations.
My conclusion would be that an activist government with religious affiliations concentrates too much power, in the hands of too few.
Edited on Aug 12, 2011 at 11:43pmDec '10
Re: Why Has Support For Free Markets Collapsed in Turkey?
Claire, I wonder how the question is asked and if, over the years, the polled are considering the same philosophies? For example, do they understand the question that is being asked is ostensibly about the system they have now, or do they possibly think Free Market refers to something that exists in other societies?
Meanwhile, when faced with a pdf (Windows type PC), just put what you are interested in the middle of your screen (you can zoom in with Control and the '+' sign, or zoom out with Ctrl '-'. Then hit the Print Screen (PrtScr) button and you have captured what's in your browser screen. Open your Paint program and press Ctrl V and it will paste your screen into an image. Save it as a jpeg (default is bitmap). You'll need to crop out the extraneous stuff from your browser screen with whatever program you use for editing images. You'll get something like this: Free Market Graph