Authoritarian Nationalism and Discrimination Ending with Immiserising Modernization: Economic and Social Consequences of the Republican Power Elite's Fight

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing literature -known as endogenous growth-revealing the fact that human resources are the main constituent of economic growth. Turkey has implemented for a long time a state policy by which human resources have been weakened and paralyzed. This chapter looks into the historical trajectory of this dead-lock policy, linking the basis of the current deficiencies of democracy and market economy in Turkey at institutional level on one hand, and lack of tolerance and xenophobia at societal level on the other. We argue that the Republican era's Jacobean type of ultra-nationalist unification policies explain by and large not only relative economic backwardness, but also ongoing political, economic and social adjustment problems in Turkey.