the turkish welfare regime in european context
TRANSCRIPT
German Turkish Masters Program in Social Sciences Course ID: GTSS 502 Instructors: Prof. Dr. Helga Rittersberger-TILIC
Positioning the Turkish Welfare Regime in the European Context
The influence of the European Social Model
on Turkish welfare state transformation
Stefan Kohlwes Student ID: 1714617
Ankara 10 June 2010
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Contents
1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 3
2. European Welfare Regimes – convergence or divergence? ........................................................... 4
2.1 The European Social Model ..................................................................................................... 6
2.3 Conclusion: is the European Social Model really a model? ..................................................... 9
3. The Turkish Welfare Regime: .......................................................................................................... 9
3.1 A short historical background of the Turkish Welfare State ................................................. 10
3.2 Three informal channels of welfare provision ...................................................................... 11
3.3 The deficits of the Turkish Social System: ............................................................................. 14
3.4 Turkey’s welfare regime in transition - social security reform: ............................................ 15
4. Where to converge to? A tentative conclusion. ................................................................................ 17
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1. Introduction
This paper provides a case study of the Turkish welfare regime in a comparative perspective.
The aim is not merely to analyze the path that Turkey has embarked upon with the recent
reform packages under the government of the Justice and Development Party (AKP – Adalet
ve Kalkinma Partisi). In the framework of the accession negotiations with the European
Union, it is furthermore our concern to evaluate to what extent an influence of current debates
on the European Welfare States and in specific on a “European Social Model” can be retraced
within the process of welfare state transformation in Turkey.
As will be shown, Turkey provides a very interesting and distinct example of welfare regimes
in transition. The prevailing perception in the literature describes the welfare state as a
European invention. Having its origins in industrialization and the rise of social tensions, it
has come to be a highly institutionalized component of European state tradition. Many
scholars, however, see the welfare state currently under sever attack by the continuing
promotion of a neoliberal agenda as well as by economical, social and political questions and
predicaments generally associated with the notion of globalization. Turkey, as a country
positioned at the periphery of geographical as well as political Europe, emerged from a state
tradition interlinked with European countries yet highly distinct from them at the same time.
Even though political concepts of modernization and westernization have shaped the path
Turkey has taken over the last century, the provision of welfare services especially in the field
of social security has not played a prominent role until now but is more and more to be seen
on the political agenda. Public spending on welfare is among the lowest in the OECD
countries. Thus, whereas cuts in public spending and especially in welfare are discussed and
promoted in most European countries, Turkey is in a different position. A formal welfare
regime is yet to be constructed and even though the struggle for greater efficiency certainly
plays a role, even admonishers of budget discipline and public spending cuts such as the
World Bank and the IMF advice Turkey to increase their spending on welfare provision.
Might Turkey, still highly mobile as to its low degree of institutionalization and allegedly
being influenced by European ideas, even mirror the vision of how the European Union
pictures its future welfare states to be?
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Considering this rather broad conceptual question, the aim within the scope of this paper
cannot be to provide a detailed evaluation of specific reforms in a certain domain of the
welfare state. A short introduction about the current debates of (European) welfare tradition
and a discussion about a common European conception of the welfare state coined with the
concept “European Social Model” shall provide the framework. An evaluation of the
historical legacies of state-society and state-market traditions, the most pressing socio-
economic and structural shortcomings and finally the transformation under the AKP-led
government shall put the Turkish welfare state into (European) perspective. In the conclusion
the question will be discussed whether Turkey converges towards a “European Social Model.”
2. European Welfare Regimes – convergence or divergence?
The main aim of this brief introduction on European welfare regimes is to put the following
chapters into a balanced perspective. Emphasis will be put on outlining the debate about
divergences and trends of convergence among European welfare regimes. This will be done
not only in order to frame the discussion about an alleged “European Social Model” but also
to carve out some crucial differences between most European welfare regimes and the Turkish
one.
The dominant narrative within the literature discussing the development of welfare states
considers the welfare state as a European and a capitalist invention. The German
Reichskanzler Otto von Bismarck was the first to introduce a system of work-based social
insurance in times of not only rising social tensions in the course of the industrialization-
induced social questions but also in times of hardening class-divisions and the political
mobilization of the working class. In the meantime, welfare provision by the state has come to
be seen as an essential part of modern states. Still, the discussion about the welfare states
origins and its aims has never ebbed away and is reaching in fact new peaks. Whereas the
formerly critical social democracy has come to identify itself with the welfare state, orthodox
Marxian scholars regard welfare policies as designed by the state to appease the working class
and thus continuously solidify the existing capitalist system and smoothening/concealing its
inherent unjust social relations and contradictions. The conservative narrative, meanwhile,
regards welfare as an unaffordable social cost and as having a detrimental impact on
individual morality and motivation.
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Notwithstanding this ongoing and crucial debate, there are two ideas dominating the current
discourse about the laws behind the development of welfare states. The first idea is related to
Esping-Anderson’s prominent typology of welfare regimes focusing on path-dependent
development and the ensuing immobility of welfare states due to high degrees of
institutionalization (Achterberg & Yerkes 2009: 1; Myles & Pierson 2001: 312 ff). In alleged
contrast, the second idea is that with modernization, countries are growing more alike. Thus,
the convergence thesis argues that gradually welfare states tend to converge with each other.
Both ideas shall be discussed briefly:
The concept of “welfare regime” is defined in terms of the different roles that institutions such
as the state, the family, and the labor market play in sustaining the livelihood of the individual
in society (Grütjen 2008: 113). Esping-Anderson introduced this concept and defined three
types of welfare regime in developed Western countries: the market-oriented Anglo-Saxon
model; the conservative model, which is institutionalized on the basis of employment and the
supporting role of the family; and the Scandinavian model where a universal approach based
on equal citizenship is of great importance for the design of social policies. Later, a forth type
based on special characteristics of southern-European countries was added to Esping-
Andersons typology1. At the latest since the international (Western) paradigmatic shift in
political economy which occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the course of financial
crises and increasing impact of globalization, all models faced, albeit as a matter of fact to
quite different extents, a set of problems deriving from developments which were everything
but limited to the national sphere: demographic trends leading to the ageing of population and
changes in family structures; the emergence of post-industrial service economies; flexible
production patterns replacing the Fordist production system, and changing labour markets
state policies in the light of enhanced international competition (Buğra & Keyder 2003: 12 ff).
1 As the Turkish welfare regime is usually categorized within that last, fourth type, it shall be discussed more thoroughly at a later point. Concerning the critique on Esping-Andersons typology see: Arts, Wil; Gelissen, John (2002) Three worlds of welfare capitalism or more? A state-of-the-art report in: Journal of European Social Policy 12. pp. 137-159
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It is those shared factors pressing for change and the emergence of a neoliberal agenda
promoted as an international remedy that gave rise to the second idea of increasing
convergence. Within that context, A strong narrative is that generous social provision in the
context of global economic change represents an unaffordable luxury for advanced industrial
societies. There is thus a widespread perception that the changing global environment fosters
a “race to the bottom” and leads to a much more modest level of social provision.
Convergence is hence perceived as leading towards a kind of “neo-liberal welfare state”
(Achterberg 2009: 4).
Besides alleged institutional obstacles opposed to the implementation of more stringent
common social policies on a European level, it is exactly the question connected to this
assumption which is crucial. How do policy and decision makers in the EU picture a common
social model to be? The definition of European minimum standards of welfare that states
should provide its citizens would be in line with the neoliberal ideology in case the minimum
is set low enough and would at the same time pay credit to the still very different national
setting in the 27 EU member states. On the other hand, what would be the use of such a
minimum standard obligation? In the scope of this paper it is only to a limited extent possible
to retrace the multi-faceted debate on the “European Social Model.” As bureaucratic and legal
question are of immense complexity, the following paragraph will mainly focus on sketching
general ideas on European welfare on the one hand and on the feasibility that the concept has
impact on the transformation process in Turkey as a candidate for full membership.
2.1 The European Social Model
„For some in the EU the expression „European Social Model“ evokes warm feelings of social
justice and solidarity. For others, it just raises the blood pressure“
(Anna Diamantopoulou – Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, Labour
Party,2003)
Is the European Union with its conception of a European Social Model a factor actively
“producing” convergence? Before we approach an answer with reference to the Turkish case
we shall first clarify if there is enough convergence, i.e. agreement between the 27 member
states in terms of social policies to define a relative coherent European Social Model.
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The first treaties of Rome leading to the creation of the European Economic Community did
not attempt to harmonize policy fields such as social regulations or taxation. The following
process of European integration from Rome over the Single European Act to Maastricht and
its commitment to the European Monetary Union was exclusively framed by considerations of
market integration and liberalization (Scharpf 2002: 646 ff.). The heterogeneity of welfare
states increased with each new member state. While at the national level economic policy and
policies concerning social protection still have more or less the same constitutional status, the
European integration process was foremost concerned with removing tariff barriers,
liberalizing state-owned industries and infrastructure functions, eliminating national control
over exchange rates and monetary policy and finally, with the very important stability and
growth pact, rigidly constraining public sector deficits of its member states. It was thus
foremost economic integration and its inherent economic aims and not social policy
consciously dealing with and targeting social problems that effected social policies in member
countries. Until today, the European integration process has created a blatant “constitutional
asymmetry” between policies promoting market efficiencies and policies promoting social
protection and equality. National welfare states are constitutionally constrained by the
“supremacy” of all European rules of economic integration, liberalization and competition
law. At the same time they must operate under the fiscal rules of monetary union while their
revenue base is eroding as a consequence of tax competition and the “need” to reduce non-
wage labor costs (Scharpf 2002: 666).
As a consequence of that imbalance and the great diversity of welfare regimes among the 27
EU member states, a uniform European legislation in field of the social-policy has hardly
exceeded the relatively low minimal standards that are acceptable to all Member States.
Yet, even though a European Social Model is currently much more defined by soft law, policy
recommendations and joint commitments to certain values than by accountable law (to use
this neoliberal jargon), it is used in White Papers of the European Commission as a concept
and is constant object of discussion. Politically, it is foremost used to highlight common
European patterns in contrast to those in the USA, Russia or Latin America but it is also
presented as a necessary counterweight to the process of economic integration (Manning
2007: 493).
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General objectives in terms of social policy and the vision of a “Social Europe” have been
formulated in many treaties, charters and international agreements. The treaty establishing the
European Community (TEC) set down fundamental social objectives such as the “promotion
of employment”, “improved living and working conditions” … “proper social protection”,
“dialogue between management and labor” or “the development of human resources with a
view to lasting high employment and the combating of exclusion.” The EU Charter of
Fundamental Rights includes chapters on freedoms, equality and solidarity, rights to fair and
just working conditions, social security and social assistance, equality between men and
women or trade union rights.2 The European Trade Union Confederation meanwhile
formulates even more broadly the principles of the European Social Model as “creating a
more equal society” by “ending poverty and poverty wages”, “guaranteeing fundamental
human rights”, “essential services and an income that enables every individual to live in
dignity.3
Further more or less concrete regulations have been part of succeeding Treaties such as the
Social Protocol of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 with its “formulation of standards” on
working time and equal opportunity regulations, or in the “social acquis” as part of the acquis
communautaire defining “obligations” in the framework of individual employment (contracts
and relationships of employment, discrimination, equal treatment, health and safety at work)
and collective labor relations (worker representation, information and consultation, collective
redundancy). Moreover, in the Lisbon European Council in 2007, the aim to reach a greater
convergence in terms of social policy was explicitly stated and a method to reach that aim was
agreed upon: the “open method of coordination”. While leaving effective policy choices at the
national level, it tries to improve these through promoting common objectives and common
indicators and through comparative evaluations of national policy performance.
2 Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the functioning of the
European Union & Charter of fundamental Rights of the European Union: http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/JOHtml.do?uri=OJ:C:2010:083:SOM:EN:HTML (accessed: 5 June 2010)
3 The European Trade Union Confederation on the European Social Model: http://www.etuc.org/a/2771
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2.3 Conclusion: is the European Social Model really a model?
It is claimed here that the European Social Model exists foremost because it is used as a
concept in official documents of the European Commission. While there is indeed, as Scharpf
has stated, a blatant “constitutional asymmetry” between social and economic regulations and
legislation, the character of a European Social Model seems to be relatively distinct. Even if
the term “European Social Model” escapes precise definition, and even though it tends to
conceal the vast differences between the 27 member welfare states, it has, as a model,
“anticipatory” and “aspirational” character (Diamantopoulou 2003: 3). Similar to expressions
such as “European Union” or “Common Foreign and Security Policy”, the word “model”
hints at a progressive real convergence of views among member states on general aims which
they seek to achieve in employment and social policy. To what extent a European Social
Model could also build a future counterweight vis-à-vis the contradictions of neoliberalism
seems to be a justified question. In its whole design to stress the coexistence and in fact
interdependence of “economic growth” and “social justice”4 and “competitiveness” and
“solidarity”, reminds as in fact of the neoliberal jargon in its “third way-design”.
3. The Turkish Welfare Regime:
The structure and expansion of welfare states depends on socioeconomic factors, ideology,
tradition, as well as the level of economic development. The following evaluation of the
Turkish welfare regime and the recent reforms of the social security system shall thus take
into account both, specific national characteristics as well as the context of global and
European trends in the last three decades which some refer to as the decline of welfare states.
After a short overview over Turkey’s recent economic history under the influence of
globalization and neoliberalism, the emphasis will be put on sketching the Turkish Welfare
regime in its broad characteristics as well as on defining the biggest challenges. A short
evaluation of the recent reforms will be made in order to be able to define a “direction” of
Turkish social policies.
4 As a neoliberal term
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3.1 A short historical background of the Turkish Welfare State
Turkey’s encounter with neoliberalism pretty much occurred at the same time as in Europe,
where the politics of Keynesian demand management and comparatively expansive state
regulation were abandoned to shift towards a new dogma/conceptualization of (re-)
commodification of labor and dis-organization of capitalism in the 1980s5; a move connected
to its most prominent and radical precursors Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain and Ronald
Reagan in the USA. Turkey has until then had a long tradition of etatism, a large public sector
and high figures of state-owned enterprises. Steps of privatization and liberalization had been
incremental and always accompanied by severe political tensions. The reforms and programs
implemented at the beginning of the 1980s thus signaled a dramatic shift in the state’s role in
market and society and its economic policies which had sever effects on the structure of the
Turkish labor market. Very different from most European countries, however, the emergence
of neoliberalism did not come along with calls to “dismantle the welfare state.”6 This derives
from the fact that the Turkish Welfare Regime was not and still is not nearly comparable to
European states in its attempt to guarantee “individuals and families a minimum level of
income, to provide some safety mechanism against social contingencies (inability to earn
income when sick or old), and ensure some equality concerning social services” (Asa Briggs
in: Elveren 2008: 213).
Different attempts have been made to classify Turkey’s welfare regime. With reference to
Esping-Andersons typology, Turkey is usually classified as belonging to the Southern-
European type.7 In the following, we will make use of a terminology provided by Elveren on
the one hand and Buğra & Keyder on the other. Both terms stress the same characteristic
5 See for example: Bob Jessop (2002) The Keynesian Welfare National State and The Schumpeterian
Competition State in: The Future of Capitalist State, Politiy Press, pp. 55-139. Cambridge.
6 „Dismantling the Welfare State“ is an expression frequently used in the literature to refer to the impact
of neoliberal policies on the welfare states. Most prominent among them; Paul Pierson (1996)
“Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher and the politics of Retrenchment.” Cambridge University
Press. Cambridge.
7 See for example Grütjen, Daniel (2009) The Turkish Welfare Regime: An Example of the Southern
European Model? The Role of the State, Market and Family in Welfare Provision in: Turkish Policy quarterly,
vol. 7 no.1, pp. 111 – 129, Duyulmus, Cem Utku (2009) Social Security Reform in Turkey: Different usages
of Europe in shaping the national welfare reform
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which has also been widely discussed as being part other Soutern-European countries such as
Spain, Greece or Portugal. Elveren refers to Turkey –being a “developing country” – as an
“indirect and minimalist welfare regime” (Elveren 2008: 214). Buğra & Keyder meanwhile
use the term “inegalitarian corporatist welfare regime”(Buğra, Keyder 2006: 211). The
characteristics of the Turkish welfare regime which lie behind both terms shall be topic of this
chapter. Wheras Elverens terminology hints at the fact that the state, as one possible provider
of welfare along with the market and informal networks, is attributed (as a matter of fact, it
attributes itself) a small, subordinate role, Buğra & Keyder stress the problem inherent in an
inegalitarian system, priviledging particular interests.
The formal social security system is characterized as a highly fragmented and hierarchical
system of a corporatist character which provides combined health and pension benefits to
formally employed heads of household according to their status at work. Given that the labor
market structure has long been and still is characterized by its high figures of informally
employed as well as unpaid family labor, the current system cannot achieve coverage for a
sufficiant part of the Turkish population. A universal social assistance scheme tied to
citizenship as existent in most European countries, does not exist. Considering the wide-
spread assessment that industrialized and democratic states need a broad welfare regime to
reproduce itself, it is necessary to contemplate the specific character of the informal channels
of welfare provision in Turkey that have played and are partially still playing a great role in
keeping relative stability in spite of the severe socio-economic impact of Turkey’s neoliberal
course change in the 1980s and 1990s.
3.2 Three informal channels of welfare provision
Buğra & Keyder define the three most important channels of welfare provision as the
“continuing ties of newly urbanized immigrants with their villages of origin”, “possibilities of
informal housing” and foremost the importance of family and neighborhood assistance
mechanisms” (B&K 2006: 220). The long and to some extent still persisting durability of
those channels can to some extent be explained by the specific dynamic of the rural urban-
divide and the character of urbanization in Turkey. The Turkish labor market is characterized
by a relatively high significance of agricultural employment still comprising about 40% of the
workforce (B&K 2003: 16). Whereas many family members migrate to cities, the money
earned, predominantly through informal employment, is often a contribution to the family’s
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common income. That means at the same time that many urban immigrants can still rely on
mutual forms of assistance being provided by the family. The second factor might be called –
in Elveren’s words – an indirect provision of welfare by the state. Before the 1980s, urban
immigrants had the possibility to occupy public land in the periphery of cities. Thus, they
were not only “provided” with free housing. Through eventual formalization of those
occupied spaces they also became owners of land and real estate, thus disposing of a source of
wealth and social security. These so-called gecekondu were furthermore “mechanisms” that
could transfer whole networks of family and neighborhood from the countryside into the city,
thus maintaining a system of informal mutual assistance and social security. The official
“moral legitimacy” the gecekondu had enjoyed, however, started to erode during the 1990s
when an increasingly affluent middle class started to be tended by the real estate market
thereby commodifying land that had thereto served as a source of social security for relatively
indigent urban migrants. The family is the third and most important pillar of informal welfare
provision in Turkey (a common and crucial feature of the Southern European welfare state).
Even though family and neighborhood assistance also practically continues to be an important
source of social security, developments exceeding the Turkish case such as declining birth
rates and the increasing dwindling of the extended to the nuclear family in the urban context
has put further pressure on Turkey’s informal, “traditional” channels of welfare provision
(World Bank 2005 in Grütjen 2008: 3). In spite of those developments, the family continues
to be regarded as the key element of the Turkish welfare system.
The state for a long time having been an “employer of last resort” with its state-owned
enterprises, agricultural policies that have contributed to the survival of small family farms, or
the gecekondu solution to the urban housing problem do not constitute a formal policy of
income and employment but they have been successful in keeping unemployment and worse
forms of poverty under control. They have also kept in place a socioeconomic order where
family solidarity could compensate for the absence of a formal security system that could
effectively deal with risk situations such as unemployment, sickness or age (Buğra 2003:
56ff).
Buğra & Keyder, Elveren and Yeldan all stress the role of the neoliberal transformation as
having deteriorating effects not only on the Turkish economy and the structure of the Turkish
labor market but also on the hitherto existing informal channels of welfare provision. Being
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exposed to hard competition from abroad and to the logic of international finance, Turkey had
and still has severe problems to maintain traditional forms of welfare policies as well as to
adapt to the socio-political challenges that come along with privatization, liberalization but
also a new type of urbanization.
In many different areas, Turkey – to use a political jargon – “lacks behind” in terms of
tackling those challenges and social problems. World Bank reports on the Turkish and regular
assessments of the European Union give evidence that the socio-economic problems is facing
and will be facing are immense and on very different “battlegrounds.” The fight against child
labor and the integration of women into the Turkish labor market for example pose serious
challenges to be dealt with by the Turkish state (Turkey 2009 Progress Report: 65). The
World Economic Forum ranked Turkey 105 among 115 countries in terms of equal
opportunities of women on the labor market. Whereas on average 56% of women in the EU
27 were employed in 2005, Turkey counted not more than 23.7% (Grütjen 2008: 3). Recent
studies have indicated that female employment in the informal sector has risen significantly as
especially badly paid home-work and so-called piece-work performed by women plays an
increasingly important part in securing sufficient family income. The low labor-force
participation rate of women also poses a serious problem for the long-term financing of the
social security system as many of them are passively insured over their husbands without
paying any premiums. With the erosion of informal welfare provision, poverty in various
forms, though not a new phenomenon, has come to be seen as one of the major challenges to
the Turkish welfare state. As in many developing countries, the state did not provide formal
protection against risk categories such as sickness or age, but rather provided formal
employment opportunities in state owned enterprises or indirectly in state-protected private
sector enterprises. Thus, the already mentioned form of “inegalitarian corporatism”
developed, providing social protection to a small minority of the population formerly
employed in the public or industrial sector. With the breaking away of state-provided
employment, and a shift from agricultural to industrial employment (in Turkey as a late-
industrializing country to a much lesser degree) and later in the service sector, the figures
people employed in the informal labor market increased significantly. Today, the World Bank
estimates that about half of the Turkish labor force works in the informal sector. This puts, in
turn immense financial strains on the long-term financing of the slowly transforming social
security system.
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3.3 The deficits of the Turkish Social System:
These problematic developments due to a complicated mixture of trends which exceed the
Turkish borders and the specific historic legacy of welfare conceptions in Turkey lead to a set
of serious problems which the formal Turkish security system is exposed to, respectively
which the Turkish social security system is not able to tackle. Four main deficits of the
Turkish social system can be defined.
1. Insufficient coverage of the population:
This deficit refers to the quota of people who are covered as well as to the benefits payed.
Only 41% of the Turks older than 65 receive payments out of pension insurance schemes.
About 22% are entitled to a minimum pension (65 TL in 2005, while the Food Poverty line
defined by the World Bank was 85 TL). 37% does not have any entitlement to pensions.
Considering current demographic developments, Turkey might be facing serious problems.
Whereas officially 84.5 % of the Turkish population is covered by health care insurances, the
World Bank published figures around 67%. Only in the USA and in Mexico less people are
covered by the public health care system. Thus, a great part of the Turkish population has to
pay for medical care by themselves.
2. High indebtedness of social insurance agencies
The main reason is to be found in the structure of the Turkish labor market. People
employed in the informal labor market do not pay premiums yet most of them are
insured passively with the head of the household.
3. Unequal distribution of social services
This aspect underlines what Buğra & Keyder have termed as „inegalitarian corporatist
regime.“ Different social insurance agencies each tending a specific clientele offer
different services and thus solidify inequality within the population.
4. Non-existence of universal social rights connected to citizenship
Social assistance schemes connected to citizenship do not yet exist. Only those
services which are offered in the framework of social insurances are connected to legal
entitlements. Every other services, for example offered by social institutions funded by
the state, have a highly volatile character (Grütjen 2008: 4ff)
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3.4 Turkey’s welfare regime in transition - social security reform:
Since the turn of the millennium, more and more efforts have been made by consecutive
Turkish governments to reform the Turkish social security system and to tackle the problems
discussed above. Even though some of the recent reforms will be discussed briefly, emphasis
shall be put on the environment in which those changes have been discussed.
Turkey has been strongly influenced in its entire political course by different international
actors. The International Monetary Fund as well as the World Bank had a strong hand in the
neoliberal transformation process of Turkey’s economy giving out conditional loans that
ensured Turkey’s economic opening and streamlining with the neoliberal agenda. Even
though cuts in public spending on welfare could hardly be promoted considering the fact that
Turkey has one of the lowest figures in state expenditure on social security, the
recommendation concerning reforms in social security clearly promote economic
development and the creation of a high level of competitiveness before dealing with concerns
such as social equality or poverty.8
Another actor, more encompassing than the IMF and the World Bank, is – as a matter of fact
– the European Union. It has already been stated at the beginning that the European agenda
concerning member states as well as accession countries is strongest, as clear and measurable,
in its economic conditions enabling a country eventually to full membership. In the 2002 and
2003 reports, for example, it is stated that – in terms of social policies – “amendments to the
current legislation are still needed in order to ensure the proper functioning of the social
security system and to ensure its fiscal sustainability” (Commission Communication 1999). In
the Council Decisions in 2001 and 2003, Turkey was required to “ensure the sustainability of
the pension and social security system” as a part of economic criteria.9 Elveren states that
although the EU emphasizes the importance of enhancing social security by increasing state
8 Although Pierson has stressed that the World Bank seems to have changed its „philosophy“, repositioning
itself on the issue of social policy and development and paying great attention to “attacking poverty”,
mainly by promoting well-known third-way means, stressing non-state and community responses (Pierson
2004:6ff)
9 see “European Union Council Decision of 8 March 2001” 2001; “European Union Council Decision of 19
May 2003” 2003
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support, the EU does not say anything different from the IMF or the WB who have pointed
out the necessity of social security reform for Turkey as part of their major general policy,
which is foremost to decrease public expenditures - or in the case of Turkey: making sure that
there will be no drastic increases (Elveren 2008: 221 ff).
The most extensive reform packages have been passed in 2006 and 2008 under the liberal-
conservative government of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and signify an attempt
to fight against the increasing indebtedness of social insurance agencies on the one hand and
move towards a more universal scheme of social security, away from what Buğra & Keyder
have termed an “inegalitarian, corporatist regime.” In 2006, a General Health Insurance
system was introduced, which aims at covering every citizen by providing basic health
services. Furthermore, bureaucratic centralization and a new institutional structure should
integrate thereto existing institutions under a single roof and gather dispersed social benefits
provided by several institutions (Sosyal Güvenlik Kurumu). There were also, even though not
entirely new, attempts to partially privatize social security. The 2006 EU report praised the
new 2006 legislation on social protection, but sets it alongside the lived reality of life in
Turkey: 1.29% of the population live below the hunger line, while 25.6% live below the
poverty line. The percentage of the latter increased to 40% in the rural areas. According to the
same study, the child poverty rate (below 6 years of age) is 34%, while this rate reaches
almost 40% in rural areas. (EU, 2006: 54 in: Manning 2007: 492). It was harshly criticized
that the reforms seemed to be strongly influenced by financial concerns (with the IMF as an
influential political actor) as well as by the concerns of those already formally employed,
while most issues of concern to those at risk of poverty and social exclusion were largly
neglected. In an evaluation of the transformation process, the huge gap between average
European and Turkish standards in welfare provision becomes clear once more. Buğra and
Keyder (2006) as well as Grütjen (2008) praise the reforms in the course of which the state
starts to contribute to social security provision, yet with 3-5% public allowances lay far under
the figures of at least 20% in the European Union. A due to the discussed labor market
structure and the increasing problem of poverty very crucial point on the agenda could not yet
be implemented. A universal social assistence scheme on a rights-based approach, so
characteristic for European countries, has not been approved yet. But an official draft
prepared by the AKP foresees the introduction of social assistance, conditional on
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participation in productive activity and thus as well in line with the neoliberal views on social
justice and its vision of an active and productive citizen.
4. Where to converge to? A tentative conclusion.
“We do not want a social security reform imposed on us or ordered from us; we are seeking a stable
and sustainable social security system in accordance with the European Social Model where the
experiences of IMF and World Bank can be valuable assets in the reform process. However we will like
to enact a reform that is appropriate for our domestic dynamics”
(Murat Baseskioglu, Minister of Labour & Social Security, 2005)
This paper showed that Turkey is facing social problems which derive from the historical
legacy on the one hand and from processes of neoliberal transformation in the context of
globalization on the other hand. The fact that social policies were never regarded as a crucial
task of the government and the ensuing low degree of institutionalization leaves the
incumbent government in a unique position. Whereas European convergence in terms of
welfare policies is to a large extend hindered by deeply rooted institutions and the ensuing
high political and economic costs of restructuring, Turkey is highly mobile and may thus have
freer choices which path to embark upon.
In his analysis of late developing welfare states, Christopher Pierson states that they have
always been strongly influenced both by the example of developed welfare states elsewhere
and by the promptings of international agencies - besides the often mentioned IMF and WB,
the International Labor Organization plays a strong part (Pierson 2004: 2). It is, even if Murat
Baseskioglu’s quotation from 2005 might suggest otherwise, very difficult to say whether
Turkey’s process of welfare-transformation has been influenced by a distinct idea of a
European Social Model. Whereas the economically motivated interest and recommendations
of international financial institutions as well as of the European Union are clearly
18
recognizable as a driving factor for reforms10, the European Social Model as a “soft factor” to
a large part based on values, is much harder to retrace.
The changes in social policy in Turkey (as well as in other candidate countries) should be
understood as an interaction between adaptive pressures coming from both the EU and
international organizations and the capabilities and constraints of their interaction with
domestic actors. Whereas a direct institutional impact, requiring the adaptation of a European
social policy model or the compliance with EU conditions on social policy does not seem to
play a big role I consider indirect pressure imposed by the EU on candidate countries,
conceptualized as “cognitive Europeanization” of greater significance11. The mentioned non-
binding recommendations, the open method of coordination or the deployment of incentives
of “cognitive Europeanization” (such as participation in the European Social Fund, providing
great amounts of money with the condition that it is applied in a specific framework).This
process is also underlined by the entrance of “European” attitudes and perceptions about
social issues and social problems and the best way to tackle them into the Turkish policy
discourse.
10 As already mentioned, Elveren sees in his analysis no difference between the “European paradigm” and
the “neoliberal paradigm”
11 Amongst others: Guillen & Pallier
19
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