Demokrasinin pekişmesinde iş adamlarının rolü: İspanya örneği ışığında Türkiye

The present study aims to explore role of business elites in democratic consolidation from a comparative perspective with cases of Spain and Turkey. In this regard, this thesis puts forward the following puzzle: While Spain has consolidated her democracy with unity in political domain and with relatively passive nature of business community, Turkey has been trying to achieve a consolidated democracy wherein voluntarily organized business elites, as in the case of TUSIAD, has a relatively active nature in terms of pushing for consolidation. Hence, the question is how Spain has consolidated her democracy despite the passive nature of the business community whereas Turkey has not even with her active nature of business. Accordingly, does the fact that Turkey has not a consolidated democracy with active business elites necessarily undermine the impact of business elites? By contributing to the democratic consolidation literature with three-dimensional framework of elites-state-European Union (EU), I argue that despite the relatively active nature of business community in Turkey, there are limits for business elites to influence democratic consolidation process. In this respect, elite transformation from disunity to unity in political domain and the prospect of full EU membership are the determinants for making business elites influential which are also the reasons for the success of democratic consolidation process in Spain.