TÜSIAD as a hegemonic force in Turkish politics : a Gramscian analysis of the promotion and limits of EU membership as a hegemonic project

• Main Author: Yaka, Özge
• Published: Lancaster University 2011
• Subjects: 320.9561
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.618303

This thesis uses a Gramscian framework plus primary sources to analyse the creation of EU membership as a hegemonic project (i.e. as a national-popular that programme unifies a particular accumulation strategy, state project and hegemonic vision by reformulating the collective will on and around a hegemonic principle) in Turkey between December 1999 and April 2004. It explores the complex interactions among national, European and global scales; structural and agential forces; and material and discursive dynamics. It studies the key role of TÜSIAD (the Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association) in the production of hegemony. Specifically, it focuses on the political, moral and intellectual leadership exercised by TÜSIAD and offers a new approach by analyzing TÜSIAD as a hegemonic agent, as a political party and as a collective organic intellectual. The thesis examines TÜSIAD leadership within the power bloc and the wider social formation. Conceiving hegemony as an inherently unstable process, it also reveals the weaknesses of the EU membership as a hegemonic project and of TÜSIAD as a hegemonic force. It also considers the recent rise of an alternative hegemonic project represented by the AKP (Justice and Development Party), which seems to undermine the EU membership for now. The thesis is based theoretically on the work of Antonio Gramsci and offers a critical realist and relational reading of Gramsci, inspired by Nicos Poulantzas and the strategic-relational approach. Other sources include the Amsterdam School of IPE, comparative political studies, media studies and critical discourse analysis.