ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the continuity and change in government-business relations in the Republic of Turkey. A three-stage periodization is developed to discuss the emergence and of a “state-created bourgeoisie” after the foundation of the Republic, the consolidation of the position of the private sector in the economy and society, and the shaping of a polarized business community with appearance of a new cohort of business groups associated with political Islam. The chapter stresses the fluidity of the boundaries between politics and business as a constant, as well as the different ways in which this fluidity manifested itself in different historical periods.
