Globalization and Declining Welfare State: The Case of Social Insurance in Turkey

The norm has been rapidly moving from the managed markets under the welfare state back to self-regulating market with the rise of contemporary version of globalization. Today?s globalization is characterized by neoliberal economic policies such as privatization, deregulation, and limited government intervention--despite the growth of government--in open economies. In such an environment, social insurance, one of the defining characteristics of the welfare state, has become a great fiscal burden and not surprisingly on the neoliberal agenda of the institutions of global order such as IMF and the World Bank lately. Solutions required by the neoliberal agenda involve privatization and deregulation of social insurance systems especially in developing countries such as Turkey. Despite the fact that the welfare state played a significant role between 1960 and 1980, social insurance has become one of the few safety nets left for many since the beginning of neoliberal policies in Turkey. Now with the increasing pressure from IMF, Turkish government has been actively working on market oriented solutions for financing health insurance, social security and pensions. However, this trend undermining social insurance jeopardizes at least two, if not more, important issues: sovereignty of the state and future of welfare state as an insurance against the unwanted consequences of self-regulating markets. These two issues are investigated and alternative social policy measures are evaluated in the context of Karl Polanyi?s theory of ?double movement.? ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding