Capitalism, Poverty and Social Policy in Turkey

The understanding of philanthropy in the single-party period; The distinction between the poor who "deserve aid" and those who "do not"... Institutionalization of social policy after the Second World War... After 1980: Dissolution of the social welfare regime; Poor Fukara Fund, Green Card... Conservative liberalism of the AKP period and the "return" of philanthropy... In this book, Ayse Bugra focuses on a critical analysis of the history and debates of social policy in Turkey. It does this in the context of the struggle between two approaches to poverty that have accompanied the development of capitalism since the 16th century. The first approach, which puts work at the center of the value system, is skeptical about the use of public resources for social purposes and emphasizes charity when it exhausts the possibility of explaining poverty by blaming the poor. The second approach, which is rights-based, puts society before the labor market and treats poverty as a political problem. The struggle between the two approaches is actually the struggle between those who try to preserve capitalism in its pure form and those who try to transform it into "something else". An important contribution of the book is that it brings a new perspective to the evolution of state-society relations in Turkey throughout the history of the Republic, on the axis of this struggle. State-society relations, which are the subject of "large" claims and heated debates in Turkey, have not been viewed much in terms of social rights. Studies stuck in the fields of labor law, labor economics and industrial relations could not be transformed into tools of analysis on how state-society relations are established and how they are given meaning. Ayse Bugra's book plays a leading role in this regard.



Number of Pages: 275

Year of Printing: 2008


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Iletisim Publishing

Number of Pages: 275

First Printing Year: 2008

Language Turkish