Neoliberal çağda Türkiye'de refah devleti: Sınıf tabanlı vatandaşlık rejimlerinin ortaya çıkışı

Since the adoption of neoliberal economic welfare policies in 1980, the welfare state in Turkey has undergone significant changes. In this thesis, I make the case that the best way to understand the systemic nature of these changes is to study the welfare state as an amalgamation of ?citizenship regimes? that target subgroups of the population. Afterwards, I provide a historical account of the development of welfare policies in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic. Finally, using content analysis of a large number of official documents (including legal texts, government programs and parliamentary minutes) I make the case that the adoption of neoliberalism marks a point of discontinuity in the historical development of the Turkish welfare state. I argue that the reforms over the past three decades have resulted in the consolidation of three citizenship regimes, divided along class lines. The citizenship regime for the poor delivers increasingly regular and reliable benefits and services, but requires the poor to live visible and docile lives under state surveillance. The citizenship regime for the working- and middle-classes is organized around deploying social security as an economic resource. The expansion of coverage offered to these classes has been accompanied by the use of social security resources in investments and market development, especially in housing and healthcare. Finally, the citizenship regime for the rich is organized to drive individual investment in the financial sector, with a discourse that prioritizes growth and financial health above the welfare outcomes it produces. Further research is needed to investigate these citizenship regimes in their daily practices, to go beyond the official discourse and study the lived experience of people subjected to them. Keywords: welfare state, citizenship, neoliberalism, Turkey, citizenship regime