Against methodological nationalism: How the material contraction and expansion shape the working class in Turkey

• In Event: Political Economy of the World-System Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Roundtable I: Class, Culture, and Economic Inequality in the Contemporary World System

Abstract

Working-class studies mostly examine the formation of the working class at the national or regional level and conclude there. Standalone, they might successfully depict the processes in their given unit of analysis. However, this study differs from those at a methodological level by considering working-class formation and destruction (all working-class processes) as holistic processes shaped by global forces, even when they manifest at the regional/national level. When viewed globally, the working class is actually an ever- growing class. At the same time, it is a class whose form is changing due to global-level mechanisms. This paper elaborates on the formation of the working class in Turkey, while purposefully avoiding the trap of methodological nationalism/regionalism, even though the unit of analysis is on the national level.

To achieve this, the study borrows the concepts of material expansion, material contraction, and financialization widely -but not exclusively- used by the world systems scholars. This paper focuses on how the material expansion and financialization eras influenced (a) where and how the capital moves in the world and (b) what this movement does to the working class.

Turkey, due to its position in the world economy, experiences both industrialization and the withdrawal of industry, and consequently, different working-class formations at the same time. The significance of analyzing Turkey becomes apparent here: it offers the opportunity to observe two separate processes of creating a working class within a single working-class formation (at the national level). In other words, it provides an opportunity to observe this global process at the nation-state level. In a way, Turkey serves as a laboratory, providing empirical tools to analyze what is analogous to a global phenomenon. This paper traces the movement of capital and regimes of accumulation, along with the working-class configuration, in Turkey.

Author

• Busra Ferligul, Binghamton University