Middle Eastern Studies

ISSN: 0026-3206 (Print) 1743-7881 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/fmes20

Change and Continuity under an Eclectic Social

Security Regime: The Case of Turkey

Ayşe Bugra & Aysen Candas

To cite this article: Ayşe Bugra & Aysen Candas (2011) Change and Continuity under an
Eclectic Social Security Regime: The Case of Turkey, Middle Eastern Studies, 47:3, 515-528, DOI:
10.1080/00263206.2011.565145

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2011.565145

Published online: 19 May 2011.

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Middle Eastern Studies,
Vol. 47, No. 3, 515–528, May 2011

Change and Continuity under an Eclectic

Social Security Regime: The Case of
Turkey
AYŞE BUGRA & AYSEN CANDAS

Among the ideas, policies, laws and practices which shape the recent transformations
in globalizing economies, new ways of thinking about social security and social
solidarity rank high in terms of their power to remould societies. As an integral
aspect of these transformations, a reinvigorated social policy debate asserts itself
along with the general trend towards the expansion of the market. Given the impact
of pro-market policies on the relatively disadvantaged groups, a rethinking of social
security and social solidarity inevitably emerges. Diverse approaches to social
support and social security informed by disparate conceptions of social solidarity
shape political debates. While continuity and change tread simultaneously, the major
variable that has long been purged out in our neoliberal times, namely politics, once
again enters the scene as the key factor that can determine the outcome.
Despite the fact that market-oriented policies were paired with social policy
debates and their politics almost everywhere, the new politics of social policy
assumes, at least part of its character, from the tenets of the already existing
institutional framework.1 For instance, in societies with mature welfare states, the
social resistance of those who are formally covered by the social security regime does
not fail to emerge and usually successfully sets itself against the dismantling of the
levels of social protection already attained.2 Moreover, in many countries of Latin
America, Asia and Africa where social rights have either been non-existent or limited
in scope and coverage, the need for new mechanisms for social protection has been
acknowledged, albeit under different agendas or conceptions of social solidarity.3
These agendas are about the revitalization of traditional forms of solidarity as well
as the rise of new demands for rights-based social policy intervention. The
proliferation of new political agendas reshuffles the political antagonisms, and
introduces contending ways of imagining politics, society and the social relations
therein.
While the recent literature on the transformation of social security regimes and
welfare states notes that globalization is not producing uniform outcomes, a new
body of research is emerging which investigates the underlying causes for the
disparate outcomes generated in various contexts as responses to the expansion of
self-regulating markets.4 Some argue that the inherited system of social security

ISSN 0026-3206 Print/1743-7881 Online/11/030515-14 ª 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/00263206.2011.565145
516 A. Bugra and A. Candas

continues to shape both the impact of and the responses to the global reach of the
market economy.5 This version of the path dependency argument has particularly
been noted to be prevalent in the case of the Bismarckian social security regimes,
which have traditionally maintained social stratification through benefits that reflect
the status at work of the beneficiaries and reinforced the dependent status of women
in conformity with the male breadwinner model. Palier and Martin shed some doubt
on the resiliency and even frozenness thesis that has been employed to explain the
relative lack of change in Bismarckian regimes, while Filgueira showed that the
social states of Latin America with their universalist, dualist and exclusionary
characteristics are transforming themselves in various directions.6 These researchers
convincingly argue that most countries that have inherited Bismarckian, dualist and
exclusionary attributes are indeed getting transformed, some towards more
neoliberal directions and some towards more universalist and egalitarian structures.
While these analyses are certainly helpful, applying them to the cases which,
instead of mature or liberal or social democratic welfare states, host a peculiar
combination of Bismarckian conservativism, stratification and dualism with
exclusion and informality, or what we would like to call, eclectic social security
regimes show that, prognosis might be less predictable in those cases. It seems that
the more eclectic the inherited social security regime is, and the more fragmented the
constituency has become due to getting covered by diverse institutions, the easier it
gets for the state to dismantle social security in the short run without running into a
powerful political opposition. What happens in the long run can prove to be less
predictable however, for eclectic formations, once dismantled, can also be remoulded
in unprecedented ways. Thus the long term changes in the social security regime also
depend on politics, and specifically on the political coalitions that the formerly
fragmented constituency of the eclectic regime can forge. Though more resilient to
change initially, eclectic regimes with high level of informality alongside Bismarckian
features can prove to be more prone to rapid structural transformation.
With reference to the particular case of Turkey, this article seeks to illustrate the
rediscovery of social policy in a corporatist context, and is subject to the global
market forces in the same compartment with others. What is getting dismantled in
Turkey through a market-oriented economic strategy implemented in conformity
with the global trends is not a welfare state that has been universally applied to all
citizens, but an eclectic ‘social state’ formation that can best be described as a dual
citizenship model with a Bismarckian formal social security system that also
incorporates informality and clientelism. Given the historical features of its
sociopolitical structure, the contending social solidarity models that arise as
responses to the dismantling of the eclectic status model consist of the reassertion
of traditional forms of solidarity, and the discovery of social rights as an aspect of
equal citizenship. Needless to say, these two political agendas are antithetical to one
another in terms of the conception of society and the form of solidarity that they
entail.
It must be underlined that the particular responses to the challenges of a changing
economic order initiated in Turkey are in conformity with the global trends. The
persistence of the search for social solidarity and its rising prominence through the
implementation of liberal economic policies once again show that Polanyi’s
prognosis about the market society was accurate. Polanyi examined the nineteenth
 Social Security Regime of Turkey 517

century market society in its exceptional character which sought to subordinate the
economic activity in its totality to market exchange.7 For Polanyi, this unusual state
of affairs was bound to trigger a social reaction as the society tries to protect itself
against the ravages of the self-regulated market. State intervention was necessary
both to assure the formation of the market system and to supervise the expansion of
the market in order to protect society. This defines the dynamics of the ‘double
movement’, which, according to Polanyi, marked the nineteenth century develop-
ments toward the global reach of the market. It is not difficult to collect evidence
confirming the relevance of the ‘double movement’ also to the twenty-first century’s
societies. Contemporary societies, too, strive to protect themselves from the impact
of the expansion of markets and fight against commodification and dissolution.8
Alongside similarities however, the contemporary market society also contains
certain differences to the nineteenth century example analyzed by Polanyi. In
Polanyi’s analysis, the institutional realms of market exchange, state redistribution,
and reciprocity relations remain clearly delineated. It is difficult to say that this clear
delineation still holds today given the pivotal role assigned to the public–private–
NGO partnerships as crucial aspects of contemporary systems of welfare
governance. The debates around social capital, the rise of religious associations
and brotherhoods as civil society initiatives and business partnerships, and the
associated increase in philanthropic activity are, after all, some widely shared
features of ‘the new welfare governance’ that are valid across various contexts
today.9
The reliance on traditional or contemporary forms of social support found in
relations of kinship, private benevolence and philanthropy is situated in a complex
institutional framework that incorporates state as well as non-state actors.
Accordingly, what is prevalent today is a blurring of the boundaries between the
state, the private sector and civil society. If the political struggles culminate in
reinforcing this blurring of the boundaries, the dismantling of formal welfare
institutions could be accompanied by processes whereby the traditional, socially
conservative and family-preserving features become increasingly dominant. Eclectic
security systems could thus preserve status differences, but less so through
maintaining the ‘acquired privileges’ of the formally covered groups but through
regressing to traditional forms of conservatism and relying increasingly on informal
networks of support.
Nevertheless, the current social policy environment also incorporates a rights-
based political agenda as observed in the emergence of the basic income debate even
in those contexts that formerly lacked welfare states, such as in South Africa and
Brazil. These examples testify to the fact that alternative conceptions and regimes of
social solidarity and social security are getting established where these were formerly
largely absent.10 With the stark opposition between them, the reliance on traditional
forms of solidarity and rights-based approaches constitute two different paths of
restructuring. The shapes that the newly emerging social security regimes would take
might depend more on the ability of political actors in coming up with proposals that
would forge new coalitions, and less on the given set of inherited institutions with
their crumbling privilege orders.
This formulation is undoubtedly relevant to the case of Turkey. The challenges
that are forwarded to the current social security system by Turkey’s integration into
518 A. Bugra and A. Candas

the global market cannot simply be explained by the retreat of the state and the
expansion of the market. The need to replace the former system – which is being
dismantled – with new mechanisms of social protection is on the political agenda,
and it goes unchallenged that the state would play a role in the social arena. The role
that the state currently plays, however, places it in the picture as a partner with
philanthropists as it tends to follow philanthropic civil society initiatives’ logic of
action rather than that of taxation and redistribution. Nonetheless, the model of
social solidarity this model of welfare governance represents does not go
unchallenged.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the changes that were taking place in the
social security regimes that pertained to post-war Western Europe also found a
reflection in the rise of a new social security regime in Turkey. Alongside the
transition to a multiparty regime after the war, a social security regime was also
implanted. In the beginning, this social security regime was composed of two
organizations providing combined old age and health benefits to civil servants
(Emekli Sandı _
gı – Civil Servants’ Retirement Chest) and blue collar workers (Işçi
Sigortaları Kurumu – Workers’ Insurance Organization). In the 1960s, the Workers’
Insurance Organization was reorganized as the Social Security Organization (SSK).
Yet, even when the coverage of these two institutions were combined, only a small
segment of the society was integrated into the formal social security system and only
a small percentage of the working class was covered. During the 1970s, a third social
security organization, Bag-Kur, was established to incorporate the self-employed, the
peasants and the farmers. However, these groups’ inability to pay the premiums has
often curtailed their access to social benefits.11
With its inegalitarian Bismarckian corporatist bent, the system was certainly not
responsive to all citizens but only to those who could work. Social benefits, which
accrued to a small segment, closely represented the status differentials as these
pertained to the occupational differentials within the labour force. To illustrate the
nature of this problem with a straightforward example, for the year 2004, the health
benefits that accrued to persons covered by the Social Security Organization was
US$172 per person, for the self-employed covered by Bag-Kur it was $279 per
person, and for those who were covered by the Civil Servants’ Retirement Chest it
was $363 per person.12 Besides, the system was also patriarchal and assumed that
women who do not work ought to be covered by the benefits that are earned either
by their husbands or their fathers.13
Certainly this patriarchal mentality, as well as the anti-egalitarian corporatist
bent, were integral to the Bismarckian model itself.14 However, an even more
exclusionary outcome of the Bismarckian corporatist model emerged in contexts
where the informal sector was significantly large. This problem pertained to the
‘Southern European welfare regime’15 in general, and it was particularly significant
in the Turkish case.16 The result was the rise of a fragmented social citizenship
regime which led to the creation of two types of relationship with the state on the
basis of social security.
In the fragmented citizenship regime that was formed as a result of applying
disparate social security policies over the working population, the first citizenship
 Social Security Regime of Turkey 519

status applied to those who were formally covered by social security. Remarkable
differences among the types of coverage that are provided by the three social security
institutions aside, the formally covered citizens’ relationships to the state were
defined by the social benefits they received. A second type of relationship with the
state emerged with those who were expected to rely solely on family ties and informal
networks of social solidarity when they required support due to old age, illness,
unemployment and poverty. There, the state again contributed to the livelihood of
the individuals, but this time mainly through formalized agricultural support
policies, and by providing informal access to urban public land or land without
proper building permits. Agricultural support policies helped to sustain small
peasant agriculture, prevented a rapid dissolution of the agrarian structures, and
kept rural–urban migration under control. Even in case of migration to urban areas,
those who had land in rural areas as well as relatives who stayed in the village of
origin could benefit from multiple strategies of survival, combining the rural means
of livelihood with the income generated in the city. In the city, the gecekondu, the
Turkish version of irregular settlements that were periodically regularized through
the provision of municipal services and title deeds, replaced a proper social housing
policy and appeared as an important informal component of the country’s social
security regime. At the same time, the possibility of finding employment in state
economic enterprises, or in the protected and regulated private sector was not
altogether insignificant.17

In the post-1980 period, after the full integration of Turkey in the global market
economy through a series of market-oriented policies, the mechanisms that thus far
helped to keep poverty under control all came under pressure. With trade
liberalization, as well as with the declining state subsidies to agriculture, it became
increasingly difficult to sustain small peasant holdings. Urbanization began to lead
to a real rupture with the countryside. This was accompanied by a weakening of the
extended family ties, which were difficult to sustain in the context of the urban life in
a market society. At the same time, the rules of the market have extended to urban
landed property relations and made the irregular settlements, which rested upon a
violation of the legal basis of private property, unsustainable. In the setting of the
emerging market economy, maintaining budgetary discipline became important, and
this fact rendered employment creation in the public sector increasingly difficult.
Private enterprises had to function according to the dictates of the market and since
flexible production practices were now the norm, security of employment was
seriously undermined. Long-term stable jobs at decent wages became difficult to find
for the entire workforce.18
In the meantime, an expanding portion of society that was already without
social security was also losing the informal support it used to rely on. Under
these circumstances, a new form of solidarity asserted itself during the 1980s.
While reversing poverty was now a dimmer possibility, a new type of urban poor
had been generated whose relationship to the state needed to be defined.19 In
response to this need, in 1986 a formal institution, The Fund for the
Encouragement of Social Cooperation and Solidarity (Social Solidarity Fund)
was established to provide means-tested social assistance to the poor. The
520 A. Bugra and A. Candas

objective of the law was stated as follows: ‘Supporting social cooperation and
social solidarity is helping those citizens who are in need, and helping those who
have come to Turkey for whichever reason, and distributing incomes fairly in
order to institute social justice.’20
This statement gives the impression that a transformation towards the rise of a
new citizenship regime is about to be launched transforming the state’s relationship
with the working, the unemployed and the immigrant poor into a formal and
institutional relationship. This possibility, if realized, could have resulted in the rise
of a new solidarity regime. However, the part of the statement which refers to
‘supporting social cooperation and social solidarity’ contained a hint about what is to
follow. The preamble underlines the relationship of the new law with the traditional
institutions and explains that the relationship it aims to support would be the charity
relationship:

Islamic foundations, which are the most ancient and persistent institutions of
the Islamic Turkish civilization of Anatolia and the most beautiful examples of
cooperation and solidarity, are the most progressive institution of our times in
fulfilling social, economic and cultural needs.
. . . The honor to serve the portion of society that is placed under the middle
classes and who are without social security would be possible through the
support of the charitable and self-sacrificing citizens alongside our state.21

The law on Social Cooperation and Solidarity, which was meant to become
effective through the local foundations did not play a significant role in the fight
against poverty during the period when the Motherland Party (ANAP) of Turgut
Ozal was in power. The successive ANAP governments failed to envision the Social
Solidarity Fund as a modern institution that would generate social support through
formal social security measures, and could not succeed in utilizing the funds to
generate political support either. Thus the fund proved to be ineffective in playing a
determinant role in the relationship between the state and the citizens. Much later,
the Justice and Development Party (AKP) was to become the party that would tap
into this potential.
The 1990s witnessed yet another development with respect to the status of the
poor. This had to do with the introduction of the Green Card scheme for the
benefit of the poor who were without access to state subsidized health services.
On the one hand, the Green Card provision relied on means-testing, and the
take-up rate remained low because of the complexity of the bureaucratic
procedures of application. On the other hand, this was nevertheless a step toward
the recognition of access to health services as a right, which could now be
exercised by anyone who fulfilled the conditions cited by the means-testing.
Besides, the True Path Party (DYP) representatives who were in power at the
time declared that means-testing was a temporary measure, and that a universal
health insurance was under way.22 The realization of universal healthcare as a
social right would have created fertile ground for the transformation of the
existing citizenship regime.
The newly emerging social assistance system gained a novel significance after the
earthquake in 1999 and the economic crisis that ensued. The Fund was elevated to a
 Social Security Regime of Turkey 521

status that it did not have before. After the earthquake in the Marmara region, a
grant that was sent by the World Bank was distributed through the Social Solidarity
Fund, and the World Bank representatives were satisfied with the way things worked
out. The earthquake fund set a precedent, and the financial resources that were
provided by the Bank after the economic crisis of 2001 as part of the Conditional
Cash Transfers were also delegated to the Fund to be distributed.23
When the AKP came to power, the Fund was turned into a directorate (General
Directorate of Social Solidarity) in 2004 and continued to play a significant role in
providing social support. The first AKP government (2002–07) took quite a few
significant steps in the realm of social assistance. The coverage of the Green Card
was expanded, with improved access to health benefits, and conditional cash
transfers to poor families based on both the children’s school attendance and
vaccination records, and payable to the female head of the household, were
introduced.24 These measures most probably had a positive impact on the votes that
the governing AKP received in the East and Southeast Anatolia where poverty levels
are extreme.
During the first AKP government, Turkey’s social policy environment was
characterized by the coexistence of two tendencies acting in opposite directions. On
the one hand, the need for a systematic approach to poverty alleviation through
redistributive channels was acknowledged and the steps taken in this direction were
shaped by Turkey’s relations with the EU. In 2004, the European Commission
formally accepted Turkey as a candidate to full membership, and in 2005 the
preparation of a Joint Inclusion Memorandum became the first step towards the
country’s incorporation into social policy processes at the European level.
Combatting poverty and social exclusion have unambiguously appeared as matters
that concerned the political authority.
On the other hand, with its firm belief in the unregulated market economy as well
as with its socially conservative outlook, the government seemed to be more inclined
to prefer traditional forms of solidarity to redistributive social policy. The progress
towards the introduction of rights-based social assistance was checked by counter-
developments undermining the pull for state action. The centrality of the family and
the social networks to AKP’s approach to social policy could be clearly seen in the
recent changes within the Social Services and Child Protection Agency25 and in the
party and government programmes as well as in public speeches of the prime
minister. The first AKP government programme stated that ‘If Turkish society is still
intact after so many severe problems it has recently experienced, we owe it to our
strong family structure’26 and asserted that the government would prioritize family-
oriented policies. These mechanisms were discussed in the party programme and
involved the incentives that are designed to reinforce the role of the family in the
rehabilitation of the street children and in the care of the elderly.27 At a later stage,
the government introduced mechanisms which support family care for the disabled,
and rendered the latter dependent on their relatives.
Where the family appeared unable to face the challenge of new forms of poverty
and social exclusion, the AKP government was especially well placed to motivate
and mobilize the civil initiatives in providing social assistance. The AKP, with its
roots in the Islamist National Outlook movement, could use the discourse of Islamic
philanthropy better than any other political actor in a way to link local traditions
522 A. Bugra and A. Candas

with the prevailing trends in the international social policy environment. The
emphasis placed on the role of NGOs in dealing with poverty and the blurring of the
boundaries between the activities of voluntary associations, central government
agencies, municipalities, and the party28 seemed to be in conformity not only with
the traditions of Islamic charity but also with the global social policy environment.
One should not, therefore, exaggerate the specificity of Islam’s role in the current
social policy developments in Turkey. In fact, religion almost invariably appears as a
significant aspect of civil society initiatives in poverty alleviation in Muslim as well as
non-Muslim societies. In a different vein, it is possible to observe that in Turkey all
through the Republican era, including the single party period (1923–46) cha-
racterized by its ardent secularism, philanthropic associations have been assigned a
central role in the attempts to combat poverty.29 In other words, the significance of
the Islamist roots of the AKP lies less in the traditions of Islamic charity and more in
the ability of this party to frame an essentially conservative social policy orientation
in familiar cultural terms and institutional references which are not at all at odds
with the current global order. This comparative advantage that the AKP had in the
Turkish political scene might not be important within a rights-based redistributive
policy orientation but it could be fully utilized in an alternative solidarity model
articulated within the parameters of the neoliberal market economy.
This model appears to be particularly strong in a context where religiously
motivated civil society associations have recently become very salient in many
different areas of economic and social life. For example, the umbrella organization
TGTV (Turkish Foundation of Voluntary Organizations) now brings together about
100 NGOs that use religious references in their organizational strategy.30 Along with
strictly philanthropic associations, these NGOs include business associations and
think tanks which also engage in charitable activities.
Civil society involvement in welfare provision extends to diverse forms of
collaboration with the state through different mechanisms which include the
presence of philanthropists in the boards of trustees of local foundations under the
General Directorate of Social Solidarity and the ‘social funds’ of municipalities that
collect contributions in the form of money and goods from local companies, a
gesture which might well be reciprocated in the form of privileges accorded to these
companies in their business-related interactions with the local political authorities.
Like these donations, the distribution of assistance, both by municipalities and by
the local branches of the central welfare administration, lacks transparency. There is
no systematic mechanism of means-testing, and targeting is largely discretionary.
The assistance is irregular and, with the prominent exception of microcredit, often in
kind. As such, the whole system operates in a way which undermines the difference
between public assistance and voluntary benevolance, with the distribution of public
funds also conforming to the logic of charity.
This model of welfare provision could easily accommodate the dominant
institutional mechanisms of the global social policy environment, such as the
microcredit schemes which several Turkish government authorities have praised as
the best approach to poverty alleviation.31 The central message was that the public
transfers only aggravate poverty by reducing work incentives and create dependence
on the state; but encouraging entrepreneurship among the poor could enable them to
sustain themselves and overcome poverty. Encouraging entrepreneurship among the
 Social Security Regime of Turkey 523

poor has been accepted as an important component of the efforts to combat poverty
in a social context where the rate of poverty is much higher than the national average
among the self-employed. Hence, apart from the Grameen Bank model introduced in
the poor Southeastern region by an NGO run by an AKP-affiliated politician,32 we
have witnessed the proliferation of microcredit schemes implemented by the
government or voluntary organizations, or in partnerships between the two. In the
provision of microcredit, as of social assistance in general, philanthropy has become
an important part of social policy environment.33
Until recently, the organized groups formally included in the social security regime
remained indifferent to these developments in the realm of social assistance and did
not take a position in favour of the introduction of a rights-based income support
policy. They only reacted to the social policy orientation of the AKP government to
resist the diminishing of their already granted (or won) rights,34 which was in and of
itself a legitimate basis for resistance. Under a democratic regime, it would be
difficult for the political authority to withstand that type of popular dissent. But the
AKP goverment did handle the popular resistance relatively easily. It is plausible to
suggest that one reason for this lack of difficulty on the part of AKP can be found in
the support it enjoyed elsewhere. AKP increasingly relied on the support of those
who were excluded from the formal social security regime. The fact that there was a
significant portion in society that did not enjoy right-based relations with the state
and that this excluded portion depended on the arbitrary support generated through
charity provided by the government weakened the legitimacy, the voice and the
representativeness claims that could have been generated by the resistance of the
organized sector.
This state of affairs had other political implications as well. Since the existing
mechanisms of social assistance are inimical to the codification of social services and
support as social rights, they reinforce the traditional clientelistic forms or patronage
of the political relationship between the state and the citizens in Turkey. In this
regard, two incidents were particularly significant in generating a public conscious-
ness about the implications of the existing political economy of charity.
One of these incidents took place before the municipal elections of 2009 when in-
kind assistance distributed to the poor by the Social Solidarity Foundations
dramatically increased in quantity35 and changed in content, validating those who
accusing the government of ‘bribing’ the voters. In a poor Eastern town where
conservative parties have historically had little chance in elections, the local welfare
administrators began to distribute consumer durables as social assistance to the
poor, and the autonomous board supervising the electoral process intervened to stop
the practice. Nevertheless, the decision of the board was not heeded by the provincial
governor and he was supported by the prime minister.36
In fact, the Turkish public already had an idea about the dimensions of the
political economy of charity and its potential contribution to economic and political
interests through another incident which involved an NGO that has been
particularly prominent in the field of assistance to the poor, namely, Deniz Feneri,
or the Lighthouse. It emerged from a television programme on poverty and charity
on the privately owned Channel 7, which has an Islamic political outlook. These
names also appeared in a big legal scandal that erupted in Germany and ended with
several prison sentences for the administrators of a charity organization called the
524 A. Bugra and A. Candas

Lighthouse and a television channel called Channel 7, both based in Germany and
informally affiliated with their Turkish counterparts. The scandal involved the use of
substantial donations from Muslim residents in Germany in irregular ways to serve
economic and political interests in Islamist circles, which were said to extend to some
prominent AKP members. There is currently a court case on this matter going on in
Turkey, with hearings closed to the public. Irrespective of how the court case in
Turkey ends, the scandal has made an impact on the public perception of poverty
alleviation through charity.
In tandem with these developments, a change occurred in the discourse of the
opposition groups in the political public sphere and in civil society. These groups
began to generalize their rights claims to include the groups which were thus far
excluded from the formal social security regime. Prominent actors of especially the
left wing opposition began to refer explicitly to social ‘rights’, while previously their
demands were limited to protecting the acquired ‘privileges’ of civil servants and the
formally employed workers. As the opposition began to generalize their demands to
other formerly excluded groups, not only did the discourse of acquired privileges
dissolve and the demands begin to be asserted in the form of social rights, but also
the scope of demands was expanded to address the needs of all socially marginalized
groups. In this regard, it is significant that the CHP (Republican People’s Party) the
main opposition party, proposed a nationwide guaranteed minimum income scheme
(aile sigortasi) which is now being widely debated in the public sphere.37
Perhaps more significant is the prominence of social rights in the draft
constitution prepared by the Confederation of Socialist Trade Unions (DISK).38
The section on basic rights starts off by making a reference to the indivisibility of
civil, political,social, economic and cultural rights and asserts that it would treat
these as complementary and interdependent. The labour union rights are defined
‘not only as the rights of those who work’, but it is emphasized that ‘those who are
about to enter the workforce, those who are outside, and who are left outside, all
those parties who are in a position to want and to need the protection and
advancement of the rights and interests of the workforce must be placed in a legal
position, or must be granted the ability to exercise, labor union rights’.39 Their
reference to ‘protection from poverty and social exclusion’ as ‘a new generation of
social right’ and the emphasis on the fact that this social right has been recently
ratified by the European Council and European Union is noteworthy as well. The
section on social rights outlines the measures that must be taken to prevent
discrimination on the basis of gender, sexual orientation and old age. Positive
discrimination to equalize the status of certain groups, such as women, is identified
as a necessary mechanism for realizing social rights for historically disadvantaged
groups. Health and education are defined as services that enable persons to fully
utilize their human rights and thus, the draft emphasizes, the provision of these
services cannot be privatized.
The section on economic, social and cultural rights sums up its arguments by
listing thirty-seven rights that the authors of the draft would like to see in the new
constitution.40 The list reflects up-to-date definitions and the contemporary scope of
social rights that are ratified as law in other parts of the world. It covers the social
services that should be rendered exercisable not only by the working sectors of the
male population, but by working women and housewives, immigrants, and the
 Social Security Regime of Turkey 525

disabled, the children, the old, and those who are socially marginalized or excluded
for one reason or another.
If the fact that the draft has been prepared by a labour union is taken into
consideration, then the shift from economism and formal employment to social and
universal inclusion of all on the basis of rights and the efforts of the authors to cover
both redistributive and recognition-based grievances would appear even more
striking.
Prominent among other groups that are strongly critical of the socially
conservative orientation of government policy is the platform of women’s orga-
nizations (Kadın Eme _
gi ve Istihdamı Girişimi – Initiative for Female Labor and
Employment – KEIG 2009).41 Their criticism of the care at home model is also
shared by a platform that articulates the demands of the disabled. The way the head
of this platform, Engelliler.biz, voiced his criticism of the current government policy
toward the disabled. It is worth quoting at length because it highlights the contrast
between the different perceptions on assisting the disadvantaged that currently
prevail in Turkey:

From the perspective of the disabled, an autonomous life means to be equal

with every one . . . there is a proverb in Turkish . . . which says that ‘The hand
that gives is loftier than the hand which receives’, [but] for the disabled the
autonomous life means not to be instrumentalized by the lofty ones that are
referred here.
[Autonomous life] is living without having to rely on anyone, not becoming
the aggrandizing mirror that the other would use to get rid of his complexes,
living, without becoming the object with which others satisfy themselves. It is to
be respected, to be an individual, to be free.
Charity, . . . means unconditional help based on goodness, on religious or
moral duty, or on custom and tradition; right, on the other hand, refers to the
reciprocal trust relationship between the citizen and the state. . . . charity is the
lofty hand that gives, while right is the existence of a social state so that nobody
would be turned into a receiving hand.42

This article sought to show that globalization of economic activity and the expansion
of the logic of market society have generated two types of responses in Turkey.
While the constituencies in mature welfare states respond to the pressure exerted by
neoliberalism through their resistance and defence of their acquired rights, in eclectic
cases where the Bismarckian dual status model was prevalent alongside a large
informal sector, as in Turkey, the bifurcation of the response and the diversification
of the political agendas would also be anticipated. The organized sector in Turkey’s
dual social security regime thus far came to enjoy not social rights, that are by
definition universally applicable within the territory, but privileges that accrued to a
small percentage of a formally employed minority whose benefits are now eroding,
thanks to the pressure exerted by the neoliberal government which realized in its
second term that it would rather deal with the problem of social support through
charity. Informally employed and formerly excluded sectors nevertheless had a
relationship with the state under the former social security regime. These groups
relied on clientelistic relations with the political authorities, enjoyed arbitrarily
526 A. Bugra and A. Candas

distributed opportunities and social assistance mostly in kind, and when

philanthropy was insufficient or was not forthcoming, they were expected to fall
back on kinship ties to survive. When the state recently decided to overhaul the
social rights of the organized sector, it could easily pit one sector whose privileges it
was abolishing against the other that it continued to support through assistance in
kind, clientelism and charity activities that were organized by public–private
partnerships. In other words, the outcomes of the political process began to be
determined against social rights largely due to the existence of two types of social
citizenship status. Unlike what could have happened as a result of the organized
sector’s resistance in a horizontally organized democratic society; in Turkey, the
formally employed and the informally employed, the old, the poor, the dis-
advantaged women, and the disadvantaged Kurds and the disabled could be more
easily pitted against one another. The fact that the poor, socially marginalized and
excluded portions of society did not partake in an equal citizenship status prevented
these groups from bringing their forces together to demand social justice in the form
of a universal and rights-based social security regime that takes into consideration
differences in the capabilities to exercise rights. This picture is nowadays challenged
by many concerned groups. Whether these groups would be able to negotiate the
terms that would bring them closer together in their right-based demands and in
their opposition to the charity model is yet to be seen.

Notes
1. On this point, see B. Palier and M. Claude, ‘From ‘‘a Frozen Landscape’’ to Structural Reforms: The
Sequential Transformation of Bismarckian Welfare Systems’, Social Policy and Administration,
Vol.41, No.6 (2007), pp.535–54. Also see B. Palier and K. Thelen, ‘Institutionalizing Dualism:
Complementarities and Change in France and Germany’, Politics & Society, Vol.38 (2010), pp.119–48.
2. See, for example, P. Pierson, ‘The New Politics of the Welfare State’, World Politics, Vol.48, No.2
(1996), pp.143–79; J. Pontusson, ‘Once Again a Model: Nordic Social Democracy in a Globalized
World’, in J. Cronin, G. Ross and J. Shoch (eds.), Futures of the Left (Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 2009); C.J. Martin and K. Thelen, ‘The State and Coordinated Capitalism: Contributions of the
Public Sector to Social Solidarity in Post-Industrial Societies’, World Politics, Vol.60 (Oct. 2007),
pp.1–36.
3. M. Molyneux, ‘The ‘‘Neoliberal Turn’’ and the New Social Policy in Latin America: How Neoliberal,
How New?’, Development and Change, Vol.39 No.5 (2008), pp.775–97; M. Molyneux, ‘Mothers at the
Service of the New Poverty AgendaProgresa/Oportunidases, Mexico’s Condition.al Cash Transfer
Programme’, Social Policy and Administration, Vol.40, No.4 (2006), pp.425–49; J. Coatsworth,
‘Prologue: Leveraging Time and Money: Philanthropy and the Social Deficit in Latin America’, in C.
Sanborn and F. Portocarrero (eds.), Philanthropy and Social Change in Latin America (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), pp.v–x. I. Gough et al., Insecurity and Welfare Regimes in Asia,
Africa and Latin America: Social Policy in Development Contexts (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004); P.B. Townsend and D. Gordon (eds.), World Poverty: New Policies to Defeat an Old
Enemy (Bristol: The Policy Press, 2002); and S. Alvarez, ‘Advocating Feminism: The Latin American
NGO ‘‘Boom’’’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Vol.1, No.2 (1999), pp.181–209.
4. Palier and Thelen, ‘Institutionalizing Dualism’, also F. Filgueira, ‘Welfare and Democracy in Latin
America: The Development, Crisis and Aftermath of Universal, Dual and Exclusionary Social States’,
Research Paper, Social Policy and Development Programme Area (Geneva: UNRISD, 2005).
5. M. Daly, ‘Governance and Social Policy’, Journal of Social Policy, Vol.32, No.1 (2003), pp.113–28.
6. Palier and Martin, ‘From ‘‘a Frozen Landscape’’ to Structural Reforms’, Filgueira ‘Welfare and
Democracy in Latin America’.
7. K. Polanyi, Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1944).
 Social Security Regime of Turkey 527

8. A. Bugra, and K. Agartan, Reading Polanyi for the 21st Century: Market Economy as a Political
Project (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007).
9. B. Jessop, ‘The Changing Governance of Welfare’, Social Policy and Administration, Vol.33, No.4
(1999), pp.343–59. I. Bode, ‘Disorganized Welfare Mixes’, Journal of European Social Policy, Vol.16,
No.3 (2006), pp.346–59; World Bank World Development Report 1997 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1997); C.E. Smidt, Religion as Social Capital: Producing the Common Good (Waco, TX: Baylor
University Press, 2003).
10. See, in particular, G. Standing and M. Samson, A Basic Income Grant for South Africa (Cape Town:
University of Cape Town Press, 2003); and E.M. Suplicy, ‘From the Family Scholarship Program
towards the Citizen’s Basic Income in Brazil’, paper presented at the BIEN Congress on Basic Income,
Dublin, Ireland, 2008. The last IPSA World Congress of Political Science (July 2009, Santiago, Chile)
incorporated a special panel on the Basic Income chaired by Carole Pateman.
11. According to recent estimations, about 20% of the population is without any health insurance
coverage including the Green Card scheme that provides means-tested access to health services. See
Betam Research Note 039 (Bahcesehir University, 2009); Y. Kart, ‘Türkiye’nin en maliyetli sosyal
politikasının zayıf ve güçlü yanları’ [The Green Card: Weaknesses and Strengths of Turkey’s Most
Expensive Social Policy], http://www.betam.bahcesehir.edu.tr (accessed 8 March 2010).
12. Ankara Ticaret Odası [Ankara Chamber of Trade], Sosyal Güvenlik Raporu [Social Security Report]
(2005), http://www.atonet.org.tr/yeni/index.php?p¼288&l¼1 (accessed 8 March 2010).
13. A. Kılıç, ‘The Gender Dimension of Social Policy Reform in Turkey: Towards Equal Citizenship’,
Social Policy and Administration, Vol.42, No.5 (2008) , pp.487–503.
14. G. Esping Andersen, Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Cambridge: Polity, 1990); and Social
Foundations of Postindustrial Economies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
15. M. Ferrera, ‘The ‘‘Southern Model’’ of Welfare in Social Europe’, Journal of European Social Policy,
Vol.6, No.1 (1996), pp.17–37.
16. I. Gough, ‘Social Assistance in Southern Europe’, Southern European Society and Politics, Vol.1, No.1
(1996), pp.1–23; F.G. Castles, ‘Welfare State Development in Southern Europe’, West European
Politics, Vol.8 (1995), pp.291–313; A. Bugra and C. Keyder, ‘Turkish Welfare Regime in Trans-
formation’, Journal of European Social Policy, Vol.16, No.3 (2006), pp.211–28.
17. Bugra and Keyder, ‘Turkish Welfare Regime in Transformation’.
18. Ibid.
19. In 2007, people who lived below the official poverty threshold constituted 18.6% of the population.
According to official statistics, the incidence of poverty is even higher among casual workers (27%)
and the self-employed (23%), see TurkStat [Turkish Statistical Institute] Bulletin (2008), Results of the
2007 Poverty Study, http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/PreHaberBultenleri.do?id¼2080 (accessed 8 March
2010).
20. Turkey, Official Gazette, 14 June 1986.
21. Turkey, Parliament Deb., 454, 16 May 1986, Proposed Law on the Encouragement of Social
Cooperation and Solidarity and the Report of the Commission on Plan and Budget.
22. Turkey, Parliament Deb., reunion 84, session 2, 17 June 1992, p.364.
23. Conditional Cash Transfer involves providing monthly social assistance to poor families with children
on the condition of regular school attendance and vaccination. The target group has been the poorest
6% of the population. The amount of monthly assistance is also very low. Nevertheless, it has been
widely observed that the programme has become successful in ensuring that the girls are sent to school
and has helped the poorest section of the society to a certain extent.
24. B. Yakut-Cakar, ‘Turkey’, in B. Deacon and P. Stubbs (eds.), Social Policy and International
Interventions in South East Europe (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2007), pp.103–29.
25. B. Yazici, ‘Social Work and Social Exclusion in Turkey: An Overview’, New Perspectives on Turkey,
No.38 (2008), pp.107–34.
26. Office of the Prime Minister, Directorate General of Press and Information, 18 March 2003, The
Programme of the 59th Government, http://www.byegm.gov.tr/icerikdetay.aspx?Id¼59 (accessed 8
March 2010).
27. Ibid. Also relevant, AKP Party Programme 5.8, 2 Feb. 2007, Family and Social Services, http://
eng.akparti.org.tr/english/partyprogramme.html#5.8 (accessed 8 March 2010).
28. J. White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics (Seattle: Washington
University Press, 2002).
528 A. Bugra and A. Candas

29. A. Bugra, ‘Poverty and Citizenship: An Overview of the Social Policy Environment in Republican
Turkey’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol.39 (2007), pp.33–52.
30. See, http://www.tgtv.org/web/guest/tgtv-uye-listesi (accessed 25 March 2011).
31. In 2003 two conferences on microcredit were held in five-star hotels in Istanbul with massive elite
participation: the Conference on the Alleviation of Poverty through the Use of Microcredit, organized
by the Turkish Foundation for the Reduction of Waste, Istanbul, 9–10 June 2003 and the Conference
on Microfinance: Global Experience and Prospects for Turkey, organized by the International
Finance Corporation, Turkish Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency and Bankgruppe,
Istanbul, 2–3 Oct. 2003. The opening address by the prime minister at the first conference and the
minister of finance at the second clearly revealed both the prevailing social policy outlook and the
place of microcredit within it.
32. Aziz Akgül, member of the parliament from Diyarbakır and the founding director of the Turkish
Foundation for the Reduction of Waste (Türkiye Israfı Önleme Vakfı)
33. A. Bugra and S. Adar, ‘Social Policy Change in Countries Without Mature Welfare States: The Case
of Turkey’, New Perspectives on Turkey, No.38 (2008), pp.83–106.
34. S. Adar, ‘Turkey: Reform in Social Policy’, Journal of European Social Policy, Vol.17, No.2 (2007),
pp.167–8.
35. The statistics that were released after the elections show that the amount of social assistance
distributed by the General Directorate of Social Assistance and Solidarity had increased threefold in
the pre-election period.
36. The prime minister participated in the debate with a statement which was widely quoted in the media,
both critically and with approval: ‘Charity is legitimate in our culture’. See ‘Erdogan: Sadaka
kültürümüzde meşrudur’ [Erdogan: Charity is legitimate in our culture], Milliyet, 2 Jan. 2009, http://
www.milliyet.com.tr/default.aspx?aType¼HaberDetay&ArticleID¼1041815 (accessed 8 March 2010).
37. The report of the CHP on the new guaranteed minimum income scheme for the family can be accessed
at http://www.chp.org.tr/wp-content/upload/ailesigortasi.pdf (accessed 25 March 2011).
38. The Draft Constitution prepared by DISK Kaboglu et al. (1 June 2009), Özgürlükçü, Eşitlikçi,
Demokratik ve Sosyal Bir Anayasa Için _ _
Temel Ilkeler (Anayasa Raporu) [Fundamental Principles of a
Freedom-generating, Egalitarian, Democratic and Social Constitution (Constitution Report)], http://
www.disk.org.tr/content_images/DiSKanayasa.pdf (accessed 8 March 2010).
39. Ibid., p.45.
40. Ibid., p.53.
41. KEIG, Türkiye’de Kadın Eme _
gi ve Istihdamı: Sorun Alanları ve Politika Önerileri [Female Labour and
Employment in Turkey: Problems and Policy Suggestions] (Istanbul: KEIG, 2009).
42. ‘Evde Bakim Hizmeti ve Bagimsiz Yasam’ [Care At Home Model and Autonomous Life], Bulent
Kucukaslan, 15 Oct. 2007, http://bianet.org/bianet/toplum/102304-evde-bakim-hizmeti-ve-bagimsiz-
yasam (accessed 8 March 2010).