Politics of Favoritism in Public Procurement in Turkey

Beschreibung

This book provides substantiation to claims of favoritism in public procurement in Turkey in the twenty-first century. Through an analysis of nearly fifty thousand high value contracts between 2004 and 2011, the study indicates that the AKP majority government has used public procurement as an influential tool to increase its electoral success, build its own elites, and finance politics. The use of public procurement for rent creation and distribution is found to be particularly extensive in the construction and services sectors–namely in the TOKİ projects and municipal procurements. In addition, this book demonstrates how the more than 150 legal amendments to the new Public Procurement Law in Turkey, drafted with the pull of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-World Bank nexus, have increased the use of less competitive procurement methods and discretion in awarding contracts. Relying on empirical research, this timely book provides careful, quantitative analysis of datasets in its contentions of favoritism in Turkey’s public procurement process.

This book, through an analysis of 49,355 high value public procurement contracts awarded between 2004 and 2011, provides systematic evidence on favoritism in public procurement in Turkey. Public procurement is one of the main areas where the government and the private sector interact extensively and is thus open to favoritism and corruption. In Turkey, the new Public Procurement Law, which was drafted with the pull of the EU-IMF-WB nexus, has been amended more than 150 times by the AKP government. In addition to examining favoritism, this book also demonstrates how the legal amendments have increased the use of less competitive procurement methods and discretion in awarding contracts. The results reveal that the AKP majority government has used public procurement as an influential tool both to increase its electoral success, build its own elites and finance politics. The use of public procurement for rent creation and distribution is found to be particularly extensive in the construction and the services sector through the TOKİ projects and the Municipal procurements.

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Esra Çeviker Gürakar

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“Politics of Favoritism in Public Procurement in Turkey sheds new light into an important aspect of contemporary Turkish politics that has received only scant scholarly attention. In particular, the empirical evidence presented in the book on the firms that succeeded in winning the procurement contracts makes an original contribution to the literature. The book will be especially useful for those interested in political favoritism, clientelism, and patronage in Turkey.” (Sabri Sayarı, Middle East Journal, Vol. 72 (3), 2018)
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“In this book Esra Çeviker Gürakar shows how in the last few decades public procurement rules in Turkey have been designed to enable transfer of rents through non-transparent and non-competitive mechanisms. Gürakar uses a unique data set of public procurement contracts and meticulously constructs a mapping of politically connected firms to show the pervasive presence of firms with affiliations to the ruling AKP and even to opposition parties, in localities where the latter have some power among winners of public procurement contracts in the 2000s in Turkey. She also shows that politically connected firms win contracts more frequently when less competitive procedures are used. A must-read book on state-business relations in Turkey.” (İzak Atiyas, Professor of Economics, Sabancı University, Turkey, and Director of the TÜSİAD-Sabancı University Competitiveness Forum, Turkey)

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