Liberalisation process of the Turkish economy(1923-1990)

The Republic of Turkey, inherited the legacy of the Ottoman Empire, which had been defeated in the World War I, aimed primarily to rebuild the ruined country due to the World War I and the War of Independence. It is aimed to encourage and protect the private sector in order to establish and develop a domestic industry so that the construction of the country in the economic sense could be realized. In order to achieve these goals, an Economy Congress was held in Izmir and policies to be followed in the field of economy were determined at this widely attended meeting. Despite liberal policies being followed in the first years of the Republic, in 1929, due to the economic crisis that broke out in the world, liberal politics had to be broken and statist economic models had to be carried into effect. In the period until World War II, statist-intervening policies were followed and war economy had to be implemented along with the beginning of the war. After the end of the war, the multi-party political life in Turkey was begun. During the Democratic Party Period Turkey returned to the liberal economic policies by the effects of UN membership, American aids, Korean War and NATO membership. Democratic Party's liberal politics failed because of the cuts of American aids and natural factors towards the end of the period. The union of this failure with the political problems in the country resulted in the conquest of the military in 1960. From 1960, the liberal economic policies have been removed and the planned economic model has been adopted in Turkey. This model, which was implemented with five-year development plans, lasted until the end of the 70's. However, at the end of the 70s, due to the failure to attain the targets set in the development plans, the unfavorable trend in the economy has brought a new military intervention in connection with the social and political problems that have taken place in the country. After the coup d'etat in 1980, the January 24th Economic Stability Decisions, which were adopted in the same year, came into effect. These decisions, which are essentially adopted to fully liberalize the Turkish economy, are the product of the "New Right Thinking" that emerged in the world in the late 70s. Turgut Ozal, who has adopted the same opinion, has become the practitioner of the decisions. The governments of Ozal, who came to power in 1983, adopted and implemented policies fully liberalized in the economy. Liberal policies such as foreign trade liberalization, free exchange rate, privatization and similar applications have been implemented during Ozal Period. The liberalization process in Turkey has been almost completed with Decision 32, which was adopted at the end of Ozal Period.