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Change and Continuity under anEclectic Social Security Regime: TheCase of TurkeyAyşe Bugra & Aysen Candas

Available online: 19 May 2011

To cite this article: Ayşe Bugra & Aysen Candas (2011): Change and Continuity under an EclecticSocial Security Regime: The Case of Turkey, Middle Eastern Studies, 47:3, 515-528

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Change and Continuity under an EclecticSocial Security Regime: The Case ofTurkey

AYSE BUGRA & AYSEN CANDAS

Among the ideas, policies, laws and practices which shape the recent transformationsin globalizing economies, new ways of thinking about social security and socialsolidarity rank high in terms of their power to remould societies. As an integralaspect of these transformations, a reinvigorated social policy debate asserts itselfalong with the general trend towards the expansion of the market. Given the impactof pro-market policies on the relatively disadvantaged groups, a rethinking of socialsecurity and social solidarity inevitably emerges. Diverse approaches to socialsupport and social security informed by disparate conceptions of social solidarityshape political debates. While continuity and change tread simultaneously, the majorvariable that has long been purged out in our neoliberal times, namely politics, onceagain enters the scene as the key factor that can determine the outcome.

Despite the fact that market-oriented policies were paired with social policydebates and their politics almost everywhere, the new politics of social policyassumes, at least part of its character, from the tenets of the already existinginstitutional framework.1 For instance, in societies with mature welfare states, thesocial resistance of those who are formally covered by the social security regime doesnot fail to emerge and usually successfully sets itself against the dismantling of thelevels of social protection already attained.2 Moreover, in many countries of LatinAmerica, Asia and Africa where social rights have either been non-existent or limitedin scope and coverage, the need for new mechanisms for social protection has beenacknowledged, albeit under different agendas or conceptions of social solidarity.3

These agendas are about the revitalization of traditional forms of solidarity as wellas the rise of new demands for rights-based social policy intervention. Theproliferation of new political agendas reshuffles the political antagonisms, andintroduces contending ways of imagining politics, society and the social relationstherein.

While the recent literature on the transformation of social security regimes andwelfare states notes that globalization is not producing uniform outcomes, a newbody of research is emerging which investigates the underlying causes for thedisparate outcomes generated in various contexts as responses to the expansion ofself-regulating markets.4 Some argue that the inherited system of social security

Middle Eastern Studies,Vol. 47, No. 3, 515–528, May 2011

ISSN 0026-3206 Print/1743-7881 Online/11/030515-14 ª 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/00263206.2011.565145

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continues to shape both the impact of and the responses to the global reach of themarket economy.5 This version of the path dependency argument has particularlybeen noted to be prevalent in the case of the Bismarckian social security regimes,which have traditionally maintained social stratification through benefits that reflectthe status at work of the beneficiaries and reinforced the dependent status of womenin conformity with the male breadwinner model. Palier and Martin shed some doubton the resiliency and even frozenness thesis that has been employed to explain therelative lack of change in Bismarckian regimes, while Filgueira showed that thesocial states of Latin America with their universalist, dualist and exclusionarycharacteristics are transforming themselves in various directions.6 These researchersconvincingly argue that most countries that have inherited Bismarckian, dualist andexclusionary attributes are indeed getting transformed, some towards moreneoliberal directions and some towards more universalist and egalitarian structures.

While these analyses are certainly helpful, applying them to the cases which,instead of mature or liberal or social democratic welfare states, host a peculiarcombination of Bismarckian conservativism, stratification and dualism withexclusion and informality, or what we would like to call, eclectic social securityregimes show that, prognosis might be less predictable in those cases. It seems thatthe more eclectic the inherited social security regime is, and the more fragmented theconstituency has become due to getting covered by diverse institutions, the easier itgets for the state to dismantle social security in the short run without running into apowerful political opposition. What happens in the long run can prove to be lesspredictable however, for eclectic formations, once dismantled, can also be remouldedin unprecedented ways. Thus the long term changes in the social security regime alsodepend on politics, and specifically on the political coalitions that the formerlyfragmented constituency of the eclectic regime can forge. Though more resilient tochange initially, eclectic regimes with high level of informality alongside Bismarckianfeatures can prove to be more prone to rapid structural transformation.

With reference to the particular case of Turkey, this article seeks to illustrate therediscovery of social policy in a corporatist context, and is subject to the globalmarket forces in the same compartment with others. What is getting dismantled inTurkey through a market-oriented economic strategy implemented in conformitywith the global trends is not a welfare state that has been universally applied to allcitizens, but an eclectic ‘social state’ formation that can best be described as a dualcitizenship model with a Bismarckian formal social security system that alsoincorporates informality and clientelism. Given the historical features of itssociopolitical structure, the contending social solidarity models that arise asresponses to the dismantling of the eclectic status model consist of the reassertionof traditional forms of solidarity, and the discovery of social rights as an aspect ofequal citizenship. Needless to say, these two political agendas are antithetical to oneanother in terms of the conception of society and the form of solidarity that theyentail.

It must be underlined that the particular responses to the challenges of a changingeconomic order initiated in Turkey are in conformity with the global trends. Thepersistence of the search for social solidarity and its rising prominence through theimplementation of liberal economic policies once again show that Polanyi’sprognosis about the market society was accurate. Polanyi examined the nineteenth

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century market society in its exceptional character which sought to subordinate theeconomic activity in its totality to market exchange.7 For Polanyi, this unusual stateof affairs was bound to trigger a social reaction as the society tries to protect itselfagainst the ravages of the self-regulated market. State intervention was necessaryboth to assure the formation of the market system and to supervise the expansion ofthe market in order to protect society. This defines the dynamics of the ‘doublemovement’, which, according to Polanyi, marked the nineteenth century develop-ments toward the global reach of the market. It is not difficult to collect evidenceconfirming the relevance of the ‘double movement’ also to the twenty-first century’ssocieties. Contemporary societies, too, strive to protect themselves from the impactof the expansion of markets and fight against commodification and dissolution.8

Alongside similarities however, the contemporary market society also containscertain differences to the nineteenth century example analyzed by Polanyi. InPolanyi’s analysis, the institutional realms of market exchange, state redistribution,and reciprocity relations remain clearly delineated. It is difficult to say that this cleardelineation still holds today given the pivotal role assigned to the public–private–NGO partnerships as crucial aspects of contemporary systems of welfaregovernance. The debates around social capital, the rise of religious associationsand brotherhoods as civil society initiatives and business partnerships, and theassociated increase in philanthropic activity are, after all, some widely sharedfeatures of ‘the new welfare governance’ that are valid across various contextstoday.9

The reliance on traditional or contemporary forms of social support found inrelations of kinship, private benevolence and philanthropy is situated in a complexinstitutional framework that incorporates state as well as non-state actors.Accordingly, what is prevalent today is a blurring of the boundaries between thestate, the private sector and civil society. If the political struggles culminate inreinforcing this blurring of the boundaries, the dismantling of formal welfareinstitutions could be accompanied by processes whereby the traditional, sociallyconservative and family-preserving features become increasingly dominant. Eclecticsecurity systems could thus preserve status differences, but less so throughmaintaining the ‘acquired privileges’ of the formally covered groups but throughregressing to traditional forms of conservatism and relying increasingly on informalnetworks of support.

Nevertheless, the current social policy environment also incorporates a rights-based political agenda as observed in the emergence of the basic income debate evenin those contexts that formerly lacked welfare states, such as in South Africa andBrazil. These examples testify to the fact that alternative conceptions and regimes ofsocial solidarity and social security are getting established where these were formerlylargely absent.10 With the stark opposition between them, the reliance on traditionalforms of solidarity and rights-based approaches constitute two different paths ofrestructuring. The shapes that the newly emerging social security regimes would takemight depend more on the ability of political actors in coming up with proposals thatwould forge new coalitions, and less on the given set of inherited institutions withtheir crumbling privilege orders.

This formulation is undoubtedly relevant to the case of Turkey. The challengesthat are forwarded to the current social security system by Turkey’s integration into

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the global market cannot simply be explained by the retreat of the state and theexpansion of the market. The need to replace the former system – which is beingdismantled – with new mechanisms of social protection is on the political agenda,and it goes unchallenged that the state would play a role in the social arena. The rolethat the state currently plays, however, places it in the picture as a partner withphilanthropists as it tends to follow philanthropic civil society initiatives’ logic ofaction rather than that of taxation and redistribution. Nonetheless, the model ofsocial solidarity this model of welfare governance represents does not gounchallenged.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the changes that were taking place in thesocial security regimes that pertained to post-war Western Europe also found areflection in the rise of a new social security regime in Turkey. Alongside thetransition to a multiparty regime after the war, a social security regime was alsoimplanted. In the beginning, this social security regime was composed of twoorganizations providing combined old age and health benefits to civil servants(Emekli Sandı�gı – Civil Servants’ Retirement Chest) and blue collar workers ( _IsciSigortaları Kurumu – Workers’ Insurance Organization). In the 1960s, the Workers’Insurance Organization was reorganized as the Social Security Organization (SSK).Yet, even when the coverage of these two institutions were combined, only a smallsegment of the society was integrated into the formal social security system and onlya small percentage of the working class was covered. During the 1970s, a third socialsecurity organization, Bag-Kur, was established to incorporate the self-employed, thepeasants and the farmers. However, these groups’ inability to pay the premiums hasoften curtailed their access to social benefits.11

With its inegalitarian Bismarckian corporatist bent, the system was certainly notresponsive to all citizens but only to those who could work. Social benefits, whichaccrued to a small segment, closely represented the status differentials as thesepertained to the occupational differentials within the labour force. To illustrate thenature of this problem with a straightforward example, for the year 2004, the healthbenefits that accrued to persons covered by the Social Security Organization wasUS$172 per person, for the self-employed covered by Bag-Kur it was $279 perperson, and for those who were covered by the Civil Servants’ Retirement Chest itwas $363 per person.12 Besides, the system was also patriarchal and assumed thatwomen who do not work ought to be covered by the benefits that are earned eitherby their husbands or their fathers.13

Certainly this patriarchal mentality, as well as the anti-egalitarian corporatistbent, were integral to the Bismarckian model itself.14 However, an even moreexclusionary outcome of the Bismarckian corporatist model emerged in contextswhere the informal sector was significantly large. This problem pertained to the‘Southern European welfare regime’15 in general, and it was particularly significantin the Turkish case.16 The result was the rise of a fragmented social citizenshipregime which led to the creation of two types of relationship with the state on thebasis of social security.

In the fragmented citizenship regime that was formed as a result of applyingdisparate social security policies over the working population, the first citizenship

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status applied to those who were formally covered by social security. Remarkabledifferences among the types of coverage that are provided by the three social securityinstitutions aside, the formally covered citizens’ relationships to the state weredefined by the social benefits they received. A second type of relationship with thestate emerged with those who were expected to rely solely on family ties and informalnetworks of social solidarity when they required support due to old age, illness,unemployment and poverty. There, the state again contributed to the livelihood ofthe individuals, but this time mainly through formalized agricultural supportpolicies, and by providing informal access to urban public land or land withoutproper building permits. Agricultural support policies helped to sustain smallpeasant agriculture, prevented a rapid dissolution of the agrarian structures, andkept rural–urban migration under control. Even in case of migration to urban areas,those who had land in rural areas as well as relatives who stayed in the village oforigin could benefit from multiple strategies of survival, combining the rural meansof livelihood with the income generated in the city. In the city, the gecekondu, theTurkish version of irregular settlements that were periodically regularized throughthe provision of municipal services and title deeds, replaced a proper social housingpolicy and appeared as an important informal component of the country’s socialsecurity regime. At the same time, the possibility of finding employment in stateeconomic enterprises, or in the protected and regulated private sector was notaltogether insignificant.17

In the post-1980 period, after the full integration of Turkey in the global marketeconomy through a series of market-oriented policies, the mechanisms that thus farhelped to keep poverty under control all came under pressure. With tradeliberalization, as well as with the declining state subsidies to agriculture, it becameincreasingly difficult to sustain small peasant holdings. Urbanization began to leadto a real rupture with the countryside. This was accompanied by a weakening of theextended family ties, which were difficult to sustain in the context of the urban life ina market society. At the same time, the rules of the market have extended to urbanlanded property relations and made the irregular settlements, which rested upon aviolation of the legal basis of private property, unsustainable. In the setting of theemerging market economy, maintaining budgetary discipline became important, andthis fact rendered employment creation in the public sector increasingly difficult.Private enterprises had to function according to the dictates of the market and sinceflexible production practices were now the norm, security of employment wasseriously undermined. Long-term stable jobs at decent wages became difficult to findfor the entire workforce.18

In the meantime, an expanding portion of society that was already withoutsocial security was also losing the informal support it used to rely on. Underthese circumstances, a new form of solidarity asserted itself during the 1980s.While reversing poverty was now a dimmer possibility, a new type of urban poorhad been generated whose relationship to the state needed to be defined.19 Inresponse to this need, in 1986 a formal institution, The Fund for theEncouragement of Social Cooperation and Solidarity (Social Solidarity Fund)was established to provide means-tested social assistance to the poor. The

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objective of the law was stated as follows: ‘Supporting social cooperation andsocial solidarity is helping those citizens who are in need, and helping those whohave come to Turkey for whichever reason, and distributing incomes fairly inorder to institute social justice.’20

This statement gives the impression that a transformation towards the rise of anew citizenship regime is about to be launched transforming the state’s relationshipwith the working, the unemployed and the immigrant poor into a formal andinstitutional relationship. This possibility, if realized, could have resulted in the riseof a new solidarity regime. However, the part of the statement which refers to‘supporting social cooperation and social solidarity’ contained a hint about what is tofollow. The preamble underlines the relationship of the new law with the traditionalinstitutions and explains that the relationship it aims to support would be the charityrelationship:

Islamic foundations, which are the most ancient and persistent institutions ofthe Islamic Turkish civilization of Anatolia and the most beautiful examples ofcooperation and solidarity, are the most progressive institution of our times infulfilling social, economic and cultural needs.

. . . The honor to serve the portion of society that is placed under the middleclasses and who are without social security would be possible through thesupport of the charitable and self-sacrificing citizens alongside our state.21

The law on Social Cooperation and Solidarity, which was meant to becomeeffective through the local foundations did not play a significant role in the fightagainst poverty during the period when the Motherland Party (ANAP) of TurgutOzal was in power. The successive ANAP governments failed to envision the SocialSolidarity Fund as a modern institution that would generate social support throughformal social security measures, and could not succeed in utilizing the funds togenerate political support either. Thus the fund proved to be ineffective in playing adeterminant role in the relationship between the state and the citizens. Much later,the Justice and Development Party (AKP) was to become the party that would tapinto this potential.

The 1990s witnessed yet another development with respect to the status of thepoor. This had to do with the introduction of the Green Card scheme for thebenefit of the poor who were without access to state subsidized health services.On the one hand, the Green Card provision relied on means-testing, and thetake-up rate remained low because of the complexity of the bureaucraticprocedures of application. On the other hand, this was nevertheless a step towardthe recognition of access to health services as a right, which could now beexercised by anyone who fulfilled the conditions cited by the means-testing.Besides, the True Path Party (DYP) representatives who were in power at thetime declared that means-testing was a temporary measure, and that a universalhealth insurance was under way.22 The realization of universal healthcare as asocial right would have created fertile ground for the transformation of theexisting citizenship regime.

The newly emerging social assistance system gained a novel significance after theearthquake in 1999 and the economic crisis that ensued. The Fund was elevated to a

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status that it did not have before. After the earthquake in the Marmara region, agrant that was sent by the World Bank was distributed through the Social SolidarityFund, and the World Bank representatives were satisfied with the way things workedout. The earthquake fund set a precedent, and the financial resources that wereprovided by the Bank after the economic crisis of 2001 as part of the ConditionalCash Transfers were also delegated to the Fund to be distributed.23

When the AKP came to power, the Fund was turned into a directorate (GeneralDirectorate of Social Solidarity) in 2004 and continued to play a significant role inproviding social support. The first AKP government (2002–07) took quite a fewsignificant steps in the realm of social assistance. The coverage of the Green Cardwas expanded, with improved access to health benefits, and conditional cashtransfers to poor families based on both the children’s school attendance andvaccination records, and payable to the female head of the household, wereintroduced.24 These measures most probably had a positive impact on the votes thatthe governing AKP received in the East and Southeast Anatolia where poverty levelsare extreme.

During the first AKP government, Turkey’s social policy environment wascharacterized by the coexistence of two tendencies acting in opposite directions. Onthe one hand, the need for a systematic approach to poverty alleviation throughredistributive channels was acknowledged and the steps taken in this direction wereshaped by Turkey’s relations with the EU. In 2004, the European Commissionformally accepted Turkey as a candidate to full membership, and in 2005 thepreparation of a Joint Inclusion Memorandum became the first step towards thecountry’s incorporation into social policy processes at the European level.Combatting poverty and social exclusion have unambiguously appeared as mattersthat concerned the political authority.

On the other hand, with its firm belief in the unregulated market economy as wellas with its socially conservative outlook, the government seemed to be more inclinedto prefer traditional forms of solidarity to redistributive social policy. The progresstowards the introduction of rights-based social assistance was checked by counter-developments undermining the pull for state action. The centrality of the family andthe social networks to AKP’s approach to social policy could be clearly seen in therecent changes within the Social Services and Child Protection Agency25 and in theparty and government programmes as well as in public speeches of the primeminister. The first AKP government programme stated that ‘If Turkish society is stillintact after so many severe problems it has recently experienced, we owe it to ourstrong family structure’26 and asserted that the government would prioritize family-oriented policies. These mechanisms were discussed in the party programme andinvolved the incentives that are designed to reinforce the role of the family in therehabilitation of the street children and in the care of the elderly.27 At a later stage,the government introduced mechanisms which support family care for the disabled,and rendered the latter dependent on their relatives.

Where the family appeared unable to face the challenge of new forms of povertyand social exclusion, the AKP government was especially well placed to motivateand mobilize the civil initiatives in providing social assistance. The AKP, with itsroots in the Islamist National Outlook movement, could use the discourse of Islamicphilanthropy better than any other political actor in a way to link local traditions

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with the prevailing trends in the international social policy environment. Theemphasis placed on the role of NGOs in dealing with poverty and the blurring of theboundaries between the activities of voluntary associations, central governmentagencies, municipalities, and the party28 seemed to be in conformity not only withthe traditions of Islamic charity but also with the global social policy environment.One should not, therefore, exaggerate the specificity of Islam’s role in the currentsocial policy developments in Turkey. In fact, religion almost invariably appears as asignificant aspect of civil society initiatives in poverty alleviation in Muslim as well asnon-Muslim societies. In a different vein, it is possible to observe that in Turkey allthrough the Republican era, including the single party period (1923–46) cha-racterized by its ardent secularism, philanthropic associations have been assigned acentral role in the attempts to combat poverty.29 In other words, the significance ofthe Islamist roots of the AKP lies less in the traditions of Islamic charity and more inthe ability of this party to frame an essentially conservative social policy orientationin familiar cultural terms and institutional references which are not at all at oddswith the current global order. This comparative advantage that the AKP had in theTurkish political scene might not be important within a rights-based redistributivepolicy orientation but it could be fully utilized in an alternative solidarity modelarticulated within the parameters of the neoliberal market economy.

This model appears to be particularly strong in a context where religiouslymotivated civil society associations have recently become very salient in manydifferent areas of economic and social life. For example, the umbrella organizationTGTV (Turkish Foundation of Voluntary Organizations) now brings together about100 NGOs that use religious references in their organizational strategy.30 Along withstrictly philanthropic associations, these NGOs include business associations andthink tanks which also engage in charitable activities.

Civil society involvement in welfare provision extends to diverse forms ofcollaboration with the state through different mechanisms which include thepresence of philanthropists in the boards of trustees of local foundations under theGeneral Directorate of Social Solidarity and the ‘social funds’ of municipalities thatcollect contributions in the form of money and goods from local companies, agesture which might well be reciprocated in the form of privileges accorded to thesecompanies in their business-related interactions with the local political authorities.Like these donations, the distribution of assistance, both by municipalities and bythe local branches of the central welfare administration, lacks transparency. There isno systematic mechanism of means-testing, and targeting is largely discretionary.The assistance is irregular and, with the prominent exception of microcredit, often inkind. As such, the whole system operates in a way which undermines the differencebetween public assistance and voluntary benevolance, with the distribution of publicfunds also conforming to the logic of charity.

This model of welfare provision could easily accommodate the dominantinstitutional mechanisms of the global social policy environment, such as themicrocredit schemes which several Turkish government authorities have praised asthe best approach to poverty alleviation.31 The central message was that the publictransfers only aggravate poverty by reducing work incentives and create dependenceon the state; but encouraging entrepreneurship among the poor could enable them tosustain themselves and overcome poverty. Encouraging entrepreneurship among the

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poor has been accepted as an important component of the efforts to combat povertyin a social context where the rate of poverty is much higher than the national averageamong the self-employed. Hence, apart from the Grameen Bank model introduced inthe poor Southeastern region by an NGO run by an AKP-affiliated politician,32 wehave witnessed the proliferation of microcredit schemes implemented by thegovernment or voluntary organizations, or in partnerships between the two. In theprovision of microcredit, as of social assistance in general, philanthropy has becomean important part of social policy environment.33

Until recently, the organized groups formally included in the social security regimeremained indifferent to these developments in the realm of social assistance and didnot take a position in favour of the introduction of a rights-based income supportpolicy. They only reacted to the social policy orientation of the AKP government toresist the diminishing of their already granted (or won) rights,34 which was in and ofitself a legitimate basis for resistance. Under a democratic regime, it would bedifficult for the political authority to withstand that type of popular dissent. But theAKP goverment did handle the popular resistance relatively easily. It is plausible tosuggest that one reason for this lack of difficulty on the part of AKP can be found inthe support it enjoyed elsewhere. AKP increasingly relied on the support of thosewho were excluded from the formal social security regime. The fact that there was asignificant portion in society that did not enjoy right-based relations with the stateand that this excluded portion depended on the arbitrary support generated throughcharity provided by the government weakened the legitimacy, the voice and therepresentativeness claims that could have been generated by the resistance of theorganized sector.

This state of affairs had other political implications as well. Since the existingmechanisms of social assistance are inimical to the codification of social services andsupport as social rights, they reinforce the traditional clientelistic forms or patronageof the political relationship between the state and the citizens in Turkey. In thisregard, two incidents were particularly significant in generating a public conscious-ness about the implications of the existing political economy of charity.

One of these incidents took place before the municipal elections of 2009 when in-kind assistance distributed to the poor by the Social Solidarity Foundationsdramatically increased in quantity35 and changed in content, validating those whoaccusing the government of ‘bribing’ the voters. In a poor Eastern town whereconservative parties have historically had little chance in elections, the local welfareadministrators began to distribute consumer durables as social assistance to thepoor, and the autonomous board supervising the electoral process intervened to stopthe practice. Nevertheless, the decision of the board was not heeded by the provincialgovernor and he was supported by the prime minister.36

In fact, the Turkish public already had an idea about the dimensions of thepolitical economy of charity and its potential contribution to economic and politicalinterests through another incident which involved an NGO that has beenparticularly prominent in the field of assistance to the poor, namely, Deniz Feneri,or the Lighthouse. It emerged from a television programme on poverty and charityon the privately owned Channel 7, which has an Islamic political outlook. Thesenames also appeared in a big legal scandal that erupted in Germany and ended withseveral prison sentences for the administrators of a charity organization called the

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Lighthouse and a television channel called Channel 7, both based in Germany andinformally affiliated with their Turkish counterparts. The scandal involved the use ofsubstantial donations from Muslim residents in Germany in irregular ways to serveeconomic and political interests in Islamist circles, which were said to extend to someprominent AKP members. There is currently a court case on this matter going on inTurkey, with hearings closed to the public. Irrespective of how the court case inTurkey ends, the scandal has made an impact on the public perception of povertyalleviation through charity.

In tandem with these developments, a change occurred in the discourse of theopposition groups in the political public sphere and in civil society. These groupsbegan to generalize their rights claims to include the groups which were thus farexcluded from the formal social security regime. Prominent actors of especially theleft wing opposition began to refer explicitly to social ‘rights’, while previously theirdemands were limited to protecting the acquired ‘privileges’ of civil servants and theformally employed workers. As the opposition began to generalize their demands toother formerly excluded groups, not only did the discourse of acquired privilegesdissolve and the demands begin to be asserted in the form of social rights, but alsothe scope of demands was expanded to address the needs of all socially marginalizedgroups. In this regard, it is significant that the CHP (Republican People’s Party) themain opposition party, proposed a nationwide guaranteed minimum income scheme(aile sigortasi) which is now being widely debated in the public sphere.37

Perhaps more significant is the prominence of social rights in the draftconstitution prepared by the Confederation of Socialist Trade Unions (DISK).38

The section on basic rights starts off by making a reference to the indivisibility ofcivil, political,social, economic and cultural rights and asserts that it would treatthese as complementary and interdependent. The labour union rights are defined‘not only as the rights of those who work’, but it is emphasized that ‘those who areabout to enter the workforce, those who are outside, and who are left outside, allthose parties who are in a position to want and to need the protection andadvancement of the rights and interests of the workforce must be placed in a legalposition, or must be granted the ability to exercise, labor union rights’.39 Theirreference to ‘protection from poverty and social exclusion’ as ‘a new generation ofsocial right’ and the emphasis on the fact that this social right has been recentlyratified by the European Council and European Union is noteworthy as well. Thesection on social rights outlines the measures that must be taken to preventdiscrimination on the basis of gender, sexual orientation and old age. Positivediscrimination to equalize the status of certain groups, such as women, is identifiedas a necessary mechanism for realizing social rights for historically disadvantagedgroups. Health and education are defined as services that enable persons to fullyutilize their human rights and thus, the draft emphasizes, the provision of theseservices cannot be privatized.

The section on economic, social and cultural rights sums up its arguments bylisting thirty-seven rights that the authors of the draft would like to see in the newconstitution.40 The list reflects up-to-date definitions and the contemporary scope ofsocial rights that are ratified as law in other parts of the world. It covers the socialservices that should be rendered exercisable not only by the working sectors of themale population, but by working women and housewives, immigrants, and the

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disabled, the children, the old, and those who are socially marginalized or excludedfor one reason or another.

If the fact that the draft has been prepared by a labour union is taken intoconsideration, then the shift from economism and formal employment to social anduniversal inclusion of all on the basis of rights and the efforts of the authors to coverboth redistributive and recognition-based grievances would appear even morestriking.

Prominent among other groups that are strongly critical of the sociallyconservative orientation of government policy is the platform of women’s orga-nizations (Kadın Eme�gi ve _Istihdamı Girisimi – Initiative for Female Labor andEmployment – KEIG 2009).41 Their criticism of the care at home model is alsoshared by a platform that articulates the demands of the disabled. The way the headof this platform, Engelliler.biz, voiced his criticism of the current government policytoward the disabled. It is worth quoting at length because it highlights the contrastbetween the different perceptions on assisting the disadvantaged that currentlyprevail in Turkey:

From the perspective of the disabled, an autonomous life means to be equalwith every one . . . there is a proverb in Turkish . . . which says that ‘The handthat gives is loftier than the hand which receives’, [but] for the disabled theautonomous life means not to be instrumentalized by the lofty ones that arereferred here.

[Autonomous life] is living without having to rely on anyone, not becomingthe aggrandizing mirror that the other would use to get rid of his complexes,living, without becoming the object with which others satisfy themselves. It is tobe respected, to be an individual, to be free.

Charity, . . . means unconditional help based on goodness, on religious ormoral duty, or on custom and tradition; right, on the other hand, refers to thereciprocal trust relationship between the citizen and the state. . . . charity is thelofty hand that gives, while right is the existence of a social state so that nobodywould be turned into a receiving hand.42

This article sought to show that globalization of economic activity and the expansionof the logic of market society have generated two types of responses in Turkey.While the constituencies in mature welfare states respond to the pressure exerted byneoliberalism through their resistance and defence of their acquired rights, in eclecticcases where the Bismarckian dual status model was prevalent alongside a largeinformal sector, as in Turkey, the bifurcation of the response and the diversificationof the political agendas would also be anticipated. The organized sector in Turkey’sdual social security regime thus far came to enjoy not social rights, that are bydefinition universally applicable within the territory, but privileges that accrued to asmall percentage of a formally employed minority whose benefits are now eroding,thanks to the pressure exerted by the neoliberal government which realized in itssecond term that it would rather deal with the problem of social support throughcharity. Informally employed and formerly excluded sectors nevertheless had arelationship with the state under the former social security regime. These groupsrelied on clientelistic relations with the political authorities, enjoyed arbitrarily

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distributed opportunities and social assistance mostly in kind, and whenphilanthropy was insufficient or was not forthcoming, they were expected to fallback on kinship ties to survive. When the state recently decided to overhaul thesocial rights of the organized sector, it could easily pit one sector whose privileges itwas abolishing against the other that it continued to support through assistance inkind, clientelism and charity activities that were organized by public–privatepartnerships. In other words, the outcomes of the political process began to bedetermined against social rights largely due to the existence of two types of socialcitizenship status. Unlike what could have happened as a result of the organizedsector’s resistance in a horizontally organized democratic society; in Turkey, theformally employed and the informally employed, the old, the poor, the dis-advantaged women, and the disadvantaged Kurds and the disabled could be moreeasily pitted against one another. The fact that the poor, socially marginalized andexcluded portions of society did not partake in an equal citizenship status preventedthese groups from bringing their forces together to demand social justice in the formof a universal and rights-based social security regime that takes into considerationdifferences in the capabilities to exercise rights. This picture is nowadays challengedby many concerned groups. Whether these groups would be able to negotiate theterms that would bring them closer together in their right-based demands and intheir opposition to the charity model is yet to be seen.

Notes

1. On this point, see B. Palier and M. Claude, ‘From ‘‘a Frozen Landscape’’ to Structural Reforms: The

Sequential Transformation of Bismarckian Welfare Systems’, Social Policy and Administration,

Vol.41, No.6 (2007), pp.535–54. Also see B. Palier and K. Thelen, ‘Institutionalizing Dualism:

Complementarities and Change in France and Germany’, Politics & Society, Vol.38 (2010), pp.119–48.

2. See, for example, P. Pierson, ‘The New Politics of the Welfare State’, World Politics, Vol.48, No.2

(1996), pp.143–79; J. Pontusson, ‘Once Again a Model: Nordic Social Democracy in a Globalized

World’, in J. Cronin, G. Ross and J. Shoch (eds.), Futures of the Left (Durham, NC: Duke University

Press, 2009); C.J. Martin and K. Thelen, ‘The State and Coordinated Capitalism: Contributions of the

Public Sector to Social Solidarity in Post-Industrial Societies’, World Politics, Vol.60 (Oct. 2007),

pp.1–36.

3. M. Molyneux, ‘The ‘‘Neoliberal Turn’’ and the New Social Policy in Latin America: How Neoliberal,

How New?’, Development and Change, Vol.39 No.5 (2008), pp.775–97; M. Molyneux, ‘Mothers at the

Service of the New Poverty AgendaProgresa/Oportunidases, Mexico’s Condition.al Cash Transfer

Programme’, Social Policy and Administration, Vol.40, No.4 (2006), pp.425–49; J. Coatsworth,

‘Prologue: Leveraging Time and Money: Philanthropy and the Social Deficit in Latin America’, in C.

Sanborn and F. Portocarrero (eds.), Philanthropy and Social Change in Latin America (Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), pp.v–x. I. Gough et al., Insecurity and Welfare Regimes in Asia,

Africa and Latin America: Social Policy in Development Contexts (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2004); P.B. Townsend and D. Gordon (eds.), World Poverty: New Policies to Defeat an Old

Enemy (Bristol: The Policy Press, 2002); and S. Alvarez, ‘Advocating Feminism: The Latin American

NGO ‘‘Boom’’’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Vol.1, No.2 (1999), pp.181–209.

4. Palier and Thelen, ‘Institutionalizing Dualism’, also F. Filgueira, ‘Welfare and Democracy in Latin

America: The Development, Crisis and Aftermath of Universal, Dual and Exclusionary Social States’,

Research Paper, Social Policy and Development Programme Area (Geneva: UNRISD, 2005).

5. M. Daly, ‘Governance and Social Policy’, Journal of Social Policy, Vol.32, No.1 (2003), pp.113–28.

6. Palier and Martin, ‘From ‘‘a Frozen Landscape’’ to Structural Reforms’, Filgueira ‘Welfare and

Democracy in Latin America’.

7. K. Polanyi, Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1944).

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8. A. Bugra, and K. Agartan, Reading Polanyi for the 21st Century: Market Economy as a Political

Project (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007).

9. B. Jessop, ‘The Changing Governance of Welfare’, Social Policy and Administration, Vol.33, No.4

(1999), pp.343–59. I. Bode, ‘Disorganized Welfare Mixes’, Journal of European Social Policy, Vol.16,

No.3 (2006), pp.346–59; World Bank World Development Report 1997 (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1997); C.E. Smidt, Religion as Social Capital: Producing the Common Good (Waco, TX: Baylor

University Press, 2003).

10. See, in particular, G. Standing and M. Samson, A Basic Income Grant for South Africa (Cape Town:

University of Cape Town Press, 2003); and E.M. Suplicy, ‘From the Family Scholarship Program

towards the Citizen’s Basic Income in Brazil’, paper presented at the BIEN Congress on Basic Income,

Dublin, Ireland, 2008. The last IPSA World Congress of Political Science (July 2009, Santiago, Chile)

incorporated a special panel on the Basic Income chaired by Carole Pateman.

11. According to recent estimations, about 20% of the population is without any health insurance

coverage including the Green Card scheme that provides means-tested access to health services. See

Betam Research Note 039 (Bahcesehir University, 2009); Y. Kart, ‘Turkiye’nin en maliyetli sosyal

politikasının zayıf ve guclu yanları’ [The Green Card: Weaknesses and Strengths of Turkey’s Most

Expensive Social Policy], http://www.betam.bahcesehir.edu.tr (accessed 8 March 2010).

12. Ankara Ticaret Odası [Ankara Chamber of Trade], Sosyal Guvenlik Raporu [Social Security Report]

(2005), http://www.atonet.org.tr/yeni/index.php?p¼288&l¼1 (accessed 8 March 2010).

13. A. Kılıc, ‘The Gender Dimension of Social Policy Reform in Turkey: Towards Equal Citizenship’,

Social Policy and Administration, Vol.42, No.5 (2008) , pp.487–503.

14. G. Esping Andersen, Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Cambridge: Polity, 1990); and Social

Foundations of Postindustrial Economies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

15. M. Ferrera, ‘The ‘‘Southern Model’’ of Welfare in Social Europe’, Journal of European Social Policy,

Vol.6, No.1 (1996), pp.17–37.

16. I. Gough, ‘Social Assistance in Southern Europe’, Southern European Society and Politics, Vol.1, No.1

(1996), pp.1–23; F.G. Castles, ‘Welfare State Development in Southern Europe’, West European

Politics, Vol.8 (1995), pp.291–313; A. Bugra and C. Keyder, ‘Turkish Welfare Regime in Trans-

formation’, Journal of European Social Policy, Vol.16, No.3 (2006), pp.211–28.

17. Bugra and Keyder, ‘Turkish Welfare Regime in Transformation’.

18. Ibid.

19. In 2007, people who lived below the official poverty threshold constituted 18.6% of the population.

According to official statistics, the incidence of poverty is even higher among casual workers (27%)

and the self-employed (23%), see TurkStat [Turkish Statistical Institute] Bulletin (2008), Results of the

2007 Poverty Study, http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/PreHaberBultenleri.do?id¼2080 (accessed 8 March

2010).

20. Turkey, Official Gazette, 14 June 1986.

21. Turkey, Parliament Deb., 454, 16 May 1986, Proposed Law on the Encouragement of Social

Cooperation and Solidarity and the Report of the Commission on Plan and Budget.

22. Turkey, Parliament Deb., reunion 84, session 2, 17 June 1992, p.364.

23. Conditional Cash Transfer involves providing monthly social assistance to poor families with children

on the condition of regular school attendance and vaccination. The target group has been the poorest

6% of the population. The amount of monthly assistance is also very low. Nevertheless, it has been

widely observed that the programme has become successful in ensuring that the girls are sent to school

and has helped the poorest section of the society to a certain extent.

24. B. Yakut-Cakar, ‘Turkey’, in B. Deacon and P. Stubbs (eds.), Social Policy and International

Interventions in South East Europe (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2007), pp.103–29.

25. B. Yazici, ‘Social Work and Social Exclusion in Turkey: An Overview’, New Perspectives on Turkey,

No.38 (2008), pp.107–34.

26. Office of the Prime Minister, Directorate General of Press and Information, 18 March 2003, The

Programme of the 59th Government, http://www.byegm.gov.tr/icerikdetay.aspx?Id¼59 (accessed 8

March 2010).

27. Ibid. Also relevant, AKP Party Programme 5.8, 2 Feb. 2007, Family and Social Services, http://

eng.akparti.org.tr/english/partyprogramme.html#5.8 (accessed 8 March 2010).

28. J. White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics (Seattle: Washington

University Press, 2002).

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29. A. Bugra, ‘Poverty and Citizenship: An Overview of the Social Policy Environment in Republican

Turkey’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol.39 (2007), pp.33–52.

30. See, http://www.tgtv.org/web/guest/tgtv-uye-listesi (accessed 25 March 2011).

31. In 2003 two conferences on microcredit were held in five-star hotels in Istanbul with massive elite

participation: the Conference on the Alleviation of Poverty through the Use of Microcredit, organized

by the Turkish Foundation for the Reduction of Waste, Istanbul, 9–10 June 2003 and the Conference

on Microfinance: Global Experience and Prospects for Turkey, organized by the International

Finance Corporation, Turkish Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency and Bankgruppe,

Istanbul, 2–3 Oct. 2003. The opening address by the prime minister at the first conference and the

minister of finance at the second clearly revealed both the prevailing social policy outlook and the

place of microcredit within it.

32. Aziz Akgul, member of the parliament from Diyarbakır and the founding director of the Turkish

Foundation for the Reduction of Waste (Turkiye Israfı Onleme Vakfı)

33. A. Bugra and S. Adar, ‘Social Policy Change in Countries Without Mature Welfare States: The Case

of Turkey’, New Perspectives on Turkey, No.38 (2008), pp.83–106.

34. S. Adar, ‘Turkey: Reform in Social Policy’, Journal of European Social Policy, Vol.17, No.2 (2007),

pp.167–8.

35. The statistics that were released after the elections show that the amount of social assistance

distributed by the General Directorate of Social Assistance and Solidarity had increased threefold in

the pre-election period.

36. The prime minister participated in the debate with a statement which was widely quoted in the media,

both critically and with approval: ‘Charity is legitimate in our culture’. See ‘Erdo�gan: Sadaka

kulturumuzde mesrudur’ [Erdogan: Charity is legitimate in our culture], Milliyet, 2 Jan. 2009, http://

www.milliyet.com.tr/default.aspx?aType¼HaberDetay&ArticleID¼1041815 (accessed 8 March 2010).

37. The report of the CHP on the new guaranteed minimum income scheme for the family can be accessed

at http://www.chp.org.tr/wp-content/upload/ailesigortasi.pdf (accessed 25 March 2011).

38. The Draft Constitution prepared by DISK Kaboglu et al. (1 June 2009), Ozgurlukcu, Esitlikci,

Demokratik ve Sosyal Bir Anayasa _Icin Temel _Ilkeler (Anayasa Raporu) [Fundamental Principles of a

Freedom-generating, Egalitarian, Democratic and Social Constitution (Constitution Report)], http://

www.disk.org.tr/content_images/DiSKanayasa.pdf (accessed 8 March 2010).

39. Ibid., p.45.

40. Ibid., p.53.

41. KEIG, Turkiye’de Kadın Eme�gi ve _Istihdamı: Sorun Alanları ve Politika Onerileri [Female Labour and

Employment in Turkey: Problems and Policy Suggestions] (Istanbul: KEIG, 2009).

42. ‘Evde Bakim Hizmeti ve Bagimsiz Yasam’ [Care At Home Model and Autonomous Life], Bulent

Kucukaslan, 15 Oct. 2007, http://bianet.org/bianet/toplum/102304-evde-bakim-hizmeti-ve-bagimsiz-

yasam (accessed 8 March 2010).

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