Political economy of the housing market: The case of Gaziantep

This thesis was carried out in order to understand the functioning of the housing market and its relation with capital accumulation processes in the societies dominated by the capitalist mode of production. In this field, social, economic and political power relations have been evaluated through basic discussion areas such as the value and rent theories of political economy. In this context, the research unit is made up of the area of the Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality, construction companies and professional organizations operating in Gaziantep. Gaziantep is an industrialized and overpopulated city due to migration. Issues such as the dynamics affecting land and housing market in the city, factors that generate the rent, and the interaction between industrial and construction sectors are analyzed. The central aim of this thesis is to identify the motivations of the related agents involved in the housing market. And consequently this concerns an effort to grasp the operating mechanisms of the housing market, which consists of stages like production, financing and sales by the help of interviews, and to reveal the profit and rent-based power relations both produced by all these. Accordingly, the thesis analyzed the political economic factors influencing the price determination of the house, that is obviously a basic need, over a city such as Gaziantep, with a population of more than two million and where industrial and commercial capital accumulation has reached a certain level of development.