Turkey's experience with planning in the 1960s

Abstract

This thesis tries to shed light on the broad relationship between state and economic change in Turkey by studying the institutional history of the State Planning Organization in the 1960s. The recent literature on the political economy of late industrialization is evaluated critically in order to explore the aforementioned relationship. A central theme of this literature is the significance of the presence of a key institution within the state apparatus combining centralization of economic decision-making process with the power to discipline private business activity for long-term industrial development. The foundation of the State Planning Organization by young-reformist officers after the military coup in 1960 represents an attempt for such an organizational design which was envisaged to be instrumental in the formation of a developmental coalition that would have sustained economic development. However, the course of the events in the 1960s, especially the resignation of early planners in 1962 and the formation of a special Incentive and Implementation Department inside the planning agency in 1967, would prove that the relationship between the State Planning Organization and private capital was determined by the requirements of short-term private capital accumulation. In this regard, it is argued that, the developmental state theories fail to come to terms with the Turkish experience since they put too much stress on the formation of state apparatus while neglecting the significance of social formation.