ABSTRACT
The 2008 global economic crisis galvanized the debate on neo-developmentalism as the pendulum of economic thinking began to swing away from neoliberalism. The current shift in the modalities of market governance mainly deals with the ways through which industrial policies can be crafted in a more open-economy setting. Accordingly, the post-crisis literature turns a keen eye on the state’s developmental role in the research and development (R&D) sector in an age of ‘bit-driven’ global political economy. On that note, the nature, properties, and limits of state policies of emerging powers in this particular realm are becoming increasingly central but remain an understudied theme. This article discusses the R&D policies of Turkey from a state capacity perspective and questions the rationale of those policies by linking the state’s transformative capacity to the discussions on distributive pressures. Drawing on 21 in-depth semi-structured interviews, this article assesses Turkey’s R&D policies.
