Browsing by Author "Coban, M. Kerem"

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Authoritarian Neoliberalism and the Instrumentalization of the Banking Sector in Turkey and Hungary
(SAGE Publications Ltd, 2025) Apaydin, Fulya; Piroska, Dora; Coban, M. Kerem; 01. Kadir Has University
This paper studies the evolution of the domestic banking sector in Hungary and Turkey where Viktor Orban and Recep Tayyip Erdogan have intervened to politically control credit allocation. We argue that both leaders have instrumentalized the banking sector to serve their political needs rather than following a developmentalist agenda under authoritarian neoliberalism. This occurred through two distinct patterns following the 2008 Global Financial Crisis in an attempt to ensure their political survival: while Orban intervened in the banking sector to secure partisan access to consumption, Erdogan did so to ensure partisan business access to cheap credit. These policy preferences reveal additional components of an autocrat's toolkit for political survival, which are strongly influenced by the constellation of dominant social bloc interests and the relative position of their national economies within the overall global financial hierarchy.
A Coalitional Perspective on Democratic Backsliding: Elite Coalitions and the Bureaucracy in Turkey
(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis LTD, 2025) Coban, M. Kerem; Yesilkagit, Kutsal; 01. Kadir Has University
The rise of populism and the authoritarian shift has triggered a debate on the politics-administration nexus with a focus on the politics of democratic backsliding and the role of the bureaucracy. Recent studies have increasingly concentrated on the strategies of populist politicians to control the bureaucracy and the responses from the bureaucracy to these attempts. However, this dyadic approach to the politics-administration nexus remains limited in explaining fully the ramifications of democratic backsliding on bureaucracy. In this article, we propose a coalitional perspective on the politics of bureaucracy during the process of democratic backsliding. Illustrating the usefulness of this perspective through the Turkish context, the article highlights the role of intra-elite conflict and inter-elite competition in shaping the politics-administration nexus and explains why and how democratic backsliding has led to subordination, instrumentalization, and even deconstruction of bureaucracy in Turkey. As such, the article contributes to our understanding of the dynamics at play during the process of backsliding and the transformation of the politics-administration nexus.
Citation - WoS: 2
Citation - Scopus: 3
Navigating Financial Cycles: Economic Growth, Bureaucratic Autonomy, and Regulatory Governance in Emerging Markets
(Wiley, 2024) Coban, M. Kerem; Apaydin, Fulya; 01. Kadir Has University
Political decisions over economic growth policies influence the degree of bureaucratic autonomy and regulatory governance dynamics. Yet, our understanding of these processes in the Global South is somewhat limited. The article studies the post-Global Financial Crisis period and relies on elite interviews and secondary sources from Turkey. It problematizes how an economic growth model dependent on foreign capital inflows, which are contingent on global financial cycles, influences the trajectory of bureaucratic autonomy. Specifically, we argue that dependence on foreign capital flows for economic growth creates an unstable macroeconomic policy environment: while the expansionary episode of the global financial cycle masks conflicts between the incumbent and bureaucracy, the contractionary episode threatens the political survival of the incumbent. In the case of Turkey, this has incentivized the ruling coalition to resort to executive aggrandizement to control monetary policy and banking regulation, which resulted in a dramatic decay of the autonomy of the regulatory agencies since 2013.
Citation - WoS: 6
Citation - Scopus: 7
The Political Economic Sources of Policy Non-Design, Policy Accumulation, and Decay in Policy Capacity
(Sage Publications Inc, 2023) Coban, M. Kerem; 01. Kadir Has University
This article problematizes the political economic drivers of policy (non-)design, instrument choice, and how prolonged non-design could trigger policy accumulation with serious implications for policy capacity. Focusing on the currency crisis-induced economic crisis in Turkey and relying on elite interviews and secondary resources, it argues that the design space, which is defined by the interactions between the credit-led growth model and the growth regime that prioritizes loose monetary and bank regulatory policies for higher economic growth rates, led to haphazard crisis response. Prolonged non-design in response to the crisis triggered policy accumulation and decay in systemic and organizational policy capacity.
Citation - WoS: 4
Citation - Scopus: 4
Rethinking de facto autonomy? A multi-policy area approach and the regulatory policy processPalabras Clave(sic)(sic)(sic)
(Wiley, 2022) Coban, M. Kerem; 01. Kadir Has University
We examine de facto autonomy across regulatory agencies and policy sectors. Yet not much is known whether, how and why de facto autonomy could vary across policy areas within the same policy sector. This article demonstrates the existence of such variation and suggests that this variation depends on the interplay between stakeholders' diverging (or overlapping) policy preferences, deficient (or superior) organizational policy capacity, and institutional arrangements leading to enabled (or constrained) de facto autonomy. Relying on elite interviews and secondary resources, this study builds on an illustrative study on bank regulation in Turkey in the post-GFC period and presents a nuanced understanding of de facto autonomy: a multi-policy area approach to de facto autonomy that allows us to examine variation in de facto autonomy across policy areas, the determinants of the variation, and whether de facto autonomy is constrained or enabled, which structures the regulatory policy process.