Political economy of the state budget in Turkey: Reclassification of the expenditure budget in the context of accumulation and legitimation functions

The state budgets classified according to international standards do not directly reflect class relations, and may even conceal them. This study problematizes the classification of the state budget through state expenditures in order to observe class relations. In this study, the expenditure budget of Turkey is reclassified by separating the items within the context of the state's functions of accumulation and legitimation. Within this scope, firstly, the limitations of the existing classification method are revealed within the framework of functional coding. Then, some of these limitations are overcome within the framework of economic coding, and a new classification is presented. With this classification, a political-economic assessment of the post-2000 period in Turkey is conducted. In this manner, the expenditure budget of Turkey can be examined from both an overall and detailed class perspective, revealing the process of creating budget items and the underlying political economic reasons behind them. The aim of the study is to provide a source for academic research that requires class-based information about the state budget through the alternative classification that has been developed.