The Research Focus: Extensions, Level of Generality, and Vantage Point

3.2. Marxist Political Economy

3.3.1. Methods of Analysis

3.3.2.1. The Research Focus: Extensions, Level of Generality, and Vantage Point

Spatial extension:

Turkey can be considered as a very interesting case to analyse as the country carries the potential to represent the extreme or unusual conditions in its character. The peculiar character of Turkey can be traced through country’s geographic, economic, politic, social and urban conditions.

To begin with Turkey is geographically located between Asia and Europe and used as a transportation gateway connecting both continents. Trade routes which were once the symbol of this unique position now replaced with political, social and economic dualisms that affect daily life in Turkey. Turkey always aims to be part of the developed world (Europe) and always considered as an exemplary developed country primarily among Middle Eastern countries and then for the rest of the under-developed Eastern countries, especially among the Muslim world. .

Economically, between developed and less developed countries Turkey exists as a developing country. With a 1,125 billion USD GDP (World Bank, 2010) Turkey occupies the 15^th position among countries having the largest GDPs. Turkey is a founding member of the OECD and G-20 major economies which represent an account for approximately 80 per cent of the gross world product, 80 per cent of world trade, and two-thirds of the world population (G-20, 2013). Turkish economy grew with an average growth rate of 6% between the years 2002 and 2011 and increased its GNP per capita from 3.492 USD to 10.469 USD within same time period. As a result of these good economic indicators Turkey is considered as one of the world’s best investment places. According to Central Bank of Turkey, the inflow of FDI in Turkey increased from 1,8 Billion USD in 2003 to 16 billion USD in 2011 with a peak of 20 billion USD in 2007 (ISPA, 2013).

Despite its fast growing economy and its international economic appeal, Turkey is faced with many problems including high amounts of economic injustices. The economic growth mainly supported by cash flows (also called hot-money) produced a record external debt of 350 billion USD in 2013 which was 129 billion USD in 2001 (Undersecreteriat of Treasury, 2013).

This money flow utilised in non-productive purposes prevent the spread of wealth to larger

populations. Among OECD countries, Turkey has the highest Gini Coefficient¹⁰ after Mexico (OECD, 2010). Considering European countries, Turkey has the highest percentage of poverty, with 22,8% (Buğra, 2010). Unequal nature of economic growth shows itself in many other areas including the development of income inequalities, decreasing standards of working conditions, increased unemployment rates (especially among young and women), difficulties in accessibility to education, decreasing number of social service and decreasing standards of quality of life in general. This dual character of Turkish economy reflects itself best in consumption practices. On one side, the market tries hard to meet the ever increasing demands of the affluent consumers with diversified product ranges. On the other side, disadvantaged consumers try to meet their needs within market conditions that consider affluent groups more and more.

Politically, Turkey is a constitutional republic in which both the national and local governments (municipalities) are constituted of elected members. Since 2002 Turkey has been ruling by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government which obtained more than half of the general election votes in the most recent election. AKP constitutes the majority at the Turkish National Assembly and won the local elections in most of the provinces. This political power gives immense power to the party in the processes of decision making, in producing policies and in implementing projects according to developed policies.

As indicated in its name, the party always carries and defends the concepts of justice and development and always aims to promote democracy. But, in a contrasting manner, since the formation of AKP in 2002, mainly based on economic disparities, Turkish population has started to be polarised socially, economically and culturally.

During this polarisation process, consumption activity occupied an important position being the major driver of the economy. Income based polarisation is further enhanced as a result of government cuts on social expenditures and privatisation activities. Strong ties between central and local governments create political monopolies and prevent other political parties or organisations to function actively in the political arena. As Buğra (2010) indicates, this creates another facet of inequality, that is called “representation incapacity”. As a result, instead of moving towards the formation of a more democratic and just society Turkey is now moving to a more authoritarian regime supressing human rights and democratic freedoms.

As a reflection of all these economic, social and political turmoil, recent urbanisation process in Turkey carries very interesting characteristics. In terms of demographics, the urban/rural

10 An economic indicator that is used to define the gap between the highest and lowest income groups.

ratio in Turkey shifted from its rural character to urban during the first half of 1980’s. But well before that time, major cities (İstanbul, Ankara and İzmir) have already experienced massive rural migrations and population growth. Today, three major cities carry about 30% of national population and Turkey has an urbanisation rate of 77% (TUIK, 2011). Despite high rates of urbanisation, the social, cultural and economic characteristics of rural populations are highly sensed in these major cities however “urban” they are. The consumption based economic development and high migration rates have their implications in the development of service sector in major cities. This contributed to the development of a modern retail sector (as will be discussed in detail through food retailing) much faster than other sectors in the economy.

With high levels of capital concentration and its ties with social, political and cultural aspects of life retailing penetrated in everyday life of urban citizens. Its uncontrollable growth also created a problematic employment environment with constant demand for unskilled, mostly part-time, young and female labour and with enforcement of an insecure professional life. For further comments; social, economic and cultural polarisations and their relationship with retail practices need to be analysed in detail in specific cases. To this end the case of Ankara is selected as a case study.

The city of Ankara, with a population of 4,6million people, is the second largest city in Turkey after İstanbul. It is located in the middle of Anatolian Peninsula, and like Turkey, connects East Anatolia to the West and vice-versa. In relation with this reason and some others, Ankara was selected capital and became seat for governmental functions. Economically, despite its low industrial profile, Ankara contributes to the development of technology and production of high value industrial products, with its highly qualified universities, and with their successful technology development zones. Despite this, the city is mostly dependent on service sector functions which cover both governmental functions, and personal and business services. Ankara has the second largest economy in the country and produces 9%

of all GNP. It is generally believed that Ankara’s economic structure that is mainly dependent on service sector; make the city resistant against economic crises as most wages do not directly affected by the negativities of economic crisis. This, economic wise, makes the city as a relatively stable one with many investment potential¹¹. However, recent developments in Ankara and city’s rapid transformation illustrate a contrasting situation. Ankara’s crisis resistant economic structure makes the city attractive especially for housing and retail investments while former benefits from long term loan options (like Mortgage), the later enjoys middle profile but stable purchasing potential of consumers.

11 With compare more industialised and commercialised cities like İstanbul, İzmir, Kocaeli and Bursa.

With compare to other large cities, in terms of social structure, Ankara can be considered as the least cosmopolitan. High level government technocrats and small amount of wealthy capitalist classes represent the higher sections of Ankara’s population structure. The densest middle level is composed of ordinary government officers, university staff, students and personnel. At the bottom level there exist service workers and small number of industrial workers. The lines between broadly defined social classes are also visible in differentiated consumption patterns and life styles as well as political struggles.

Urban characteristics of Ankara reflect all these differentiations and more. In terms of planning Ankara occupies an important position being the first planned city of the republican era. Through its planning, Ankara’s urban development tried be rationalised and the planning process was thought to be utilised as an example for the development of other Anatolian cities¹². Since that time Ankara has stayed as a planned city (despite some planning failures) and has been considered as the most planned city of Turkey. Having many governmental functions inside, public lands in Ankara occupy large plots in the city. With the development of the city, this occupation, at one side, created a scarcity over lands carrying development potential. On the other side, faced with rapid and dense urbanisation pattern, public lands enable the city to have reserve lands either for development or for recreation. Availability of public lands also contributed to the development of squatter houses, called ‘gecekondu,’ as most of the time government bodies fail to control the land under their responsibility. Service sector workers and their families occupied these lands and call others to settle in these areas. Once individually developed, these lands are today subject to broad urban transformation projects which at one side dislocate ‘gecekondu’ settlers from their places and move them away from main urban areas, on the other side offers immense economic advantages to land owners to obtain profits from these developments.

One thing that did not change in the course of time is that still very few people benefit from all these rent creating activities while majority suffers in disadvantaged living conditions.

Considering the current urbanisation process; professional chambers, universities, planners, developers, land owners, party representatives, local and central government authorities and also foreign investment companies are all trying to intervene into local politics and wish to direct the urbanisation process according to their desires. This practically makes urbanisation process of Ankara very complicated but also makes it very attractive academically.

12 Despite this attempt ankara is also known as the first city of the republican period exemplifying the inability of urban plans to follow urbanisation dynamics.

98 Sectoral extension:

Not only valid for the case of Turkey, the rise of retail sector became a global phenomenon.

The crises of over production and difficulties in transforming manufacturing sector selected retailing as an important sector. Retailing obtains this position by contributing to the accumulation of capital by facilitating consumption and with increased capital concentration.

As a result, the sector becomes a global power and creates dominance over production and distribution activities. This makes retailing both an important economic force and a powerful political agent intervening in national and local politics. In addition to its economic importance retail sector is considered as the of the most dynamic economic sectors in the global economy. Empowerment of retailing is not only due to its responsiveness to economic crises but also comes from its high transformative capacities. The sector constantly transforms its technological, organisational, marketing and locational aspects, adapts to new conditions and carries its competitiveness to higher levels. With such changes, retailing becomes a very competitive sector. Competitiveness not only affects relations between retailing and other sectors but also increases intra-sectorial competition. As a result of intensified competition in retailing, at one side smaller, traditional, capital weak firms start to disappear. On the other side, mergers, acquisitions and monopolies create more powerful retail firms competitive at the global scale. To this end retail sector is thought to represent capitalism’s internal dynamics (competitiveness, profit maximisation, monopolisation) the best.

Food retailing, especially organised forms of food retailing, perfectly represents the situation described above. Being Wal-Mart (USA) at the first position, Carrefour (FR) at the second and Tesco (UK) third, eight food retail companies occupy the first eight positions in the list of most powerful global retailers in the year 2012 (Deloitte, 2013). In terms of transformative capacity of the sector, food retailing is always considered as the leading sector within retailing guiding other retailers. Development of POS (point of sale) terminals, new stock and flow management techniques, computerisation, logistical advancements, etc. are all first implemented in the food retailing than spread to other retail sectors. With their economic power, food retailers established their dominance over food producers (both agricultural and manufacturing), over distribution channels, and on wholesalers. Furthermore, organised formats of food retailing, with the advantage of their economic power, organisational capacities, high efficiencies and reduced costs; weakens individual and traditional food retailers and cause to their disappearance to a large extent. As discussed in the research, this transformation aggravated the condition of socially and economically weak populations.

As partially illustrated above, organised forms of food retailing apply the capitalistic development idea into reality through profit maximisation, intensified competition and

tendencies for monopolisation. Although at first sight this trend contributes to decreased overall costs, increased product qualities and ranges, thus seems to be socially and economically rewarding, its negative consequences started to be seen soon after increased competition, disappearance of traditional retailers and increased monopolisation tendencies.

In many developed countries where these capitalistic tendencies had already pushed to the extreme by food retail companies, retailers’ actions are tried to be controlled through regulating competition and preventing monopolisation. However it is again in the same developed countries that negative consequences of the retail transformation process are seen the most. Such negative aspects reflect themselves with the occurrence of disadvantage consumers and its spatial implication food deserts. This negativity reveals another important aspect of food retailing which is its importance for the continuation of human life. This distinguishes food retailing from other retail activities and forces us to consider accessibility to food retail options not only as a social and economic opportunity but also a physiological necessity that effect re-production and survival of urban populations.

Modernisation of retailing in Turkey has its roots on early 1980’s when the new right wing liberal government replaced the military regime of the coup d’état in 1982 and adapted a new export oriented free market neo-liberal regime. Implementation of neoliberal regime and its immense transformative capacity took some time to reach retail sector. After passing the early period of timid development, with the early 1990’s, retail sector started to transform rapidly. Small modern retail agglomerations are accompanied with the construction of shopping malls. Within this retail development process, food retailing started to occupy a significant position. The share of food retail sector within all retail establishments increased from 33% in 1992 (Özcan, 2000) to 51% in the year 2000. Another important aspect of this transformation process can be found in the changing structure of the food retail provision.

Food retail sector which was once dominated by small, individual retailers (convenience stores, green grocers and butchers) evolved in favour of organised food retail formats.

Development of supermarkets was followed by much larger food retail shops and ended up with a mixture of shop sizes functioning under one corporate branch. Although traditional retailers still dominate the market with their market share and number, the trend indicates that domination will soon change in favour of modern organised food retail formats.

The trend can be observed in largest cities of Turkey and Ankara occupies a significant position with its social and economic characteristics. First shopping mall of Ankara opened in 1989 just after the first one opened in İstanbul a year earlier. Today Ankara has 32 shopping

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malls¹³ and has the largest GLA (gross leasable areas) per capita share in Turkey (AYD, 2012). The city still has two traditional city centres but as a result of changing commercial patterns, these centres suffer from losing retail activities. Considering the food retail environment, Ankara represents a case in transition. The city, at one side, still protecting its traditional food retailers like street bazars and convenience stores (although their number constantly decrease) but also experience the rapid development of modern food providers whose number and market share constantly prosper. The competition between traditional and modern food retail formats can also be sensed among modern providers as the city’s food retail structure change day by day. Further to this, the competition takes different shapes in already developed areas, newly developing areas and urban regeneration areas.

The locational preferences of organised food retailers are different from traditional retailers and this is no doubt more selective and complicated. Analysing the case of Ankara will shed light into the character of this selective locational practices of modern food retailers and will give the opportunity to relate this pattern with the socio-economic characteristics of the urban population and with the development of local politics.

Temporal extension:

After defining the spatial and sectorial focuses, considering the extent of these two concentration points, the author selected the period of the neo-liberal era as his temporal focus. Neo-liberal experience of Turkey has both its peculiarities and communalities with compare to global neo-liberal theory. In Turkey, the period is also called “the revenge period of the capitalist classes” and the country witnessed with the government practices facilitating the accumulation of capital through various strategies. Deregulation, privatisation and decentralisation movements strengthened the economic and political power of capitalist classes (national and international) not only by eliminating legal and spatial barriers but also by providing new investment opportunities. The period, on one side, opened up opportunities for many investors to obtain higher returns from their investments. But on the other side caused to the collapse of others that could not adapt to this new world order¹⁴. The political economic transformation also affected the urbanisation process and made it an open ground for investors with very limited control. Urban plans are reduced to procedural documents just legitimising project based incremental urban developments while mayors¹⁵ became the main actors of urban development with almost no accountability but with full administrative and economic power.

13 Ankara comes after İstanbul having 91 shopping malls and stays before İzmir having 18 shopping malls.

14 The neoliberal era will be discussed in detail later with differentiated policy implications and with the peculiarities of Turkish.

15 Especially the majors of the 3 largest cities whose municipalities are called “Greater Municipalities”. Later with the enaction of a new law in 2012, the number of greater municipalities reached to 30.

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The neo-liberal period in Turkey is also characterised by increased social and economic polarisations. Much more than before, people living in large cities of Turkey started to live and work in segregated spaces and can rarely interact as a result of the lost public spaces.

So as the activity of consumption, shopping malls that tried to be presented as modern public spaces, also segregated. Consumption becomes so important that peoples’ spending exceeds real budget limits. With the ease of access to credit money, people started to be indebted not only to meet their needs and wants but also to meet their artificially constructed volatile desires. The process whole neo-liberalisation process strengthens the power of

In document An investigation on the relationship between capitalism and formation of urban injustices: the case of organised food retailers in Ankara (Page 95-104)