Fostering Consent in a Post-Fordist Regime: The Case of Industrial Maize Farming in Turkey
States and Citizens: Accommodation, Facilitation and Resistance to Globalization
ISBN: 978-1-78560-181-1, eISBN: 978-1-78560-180-4
Publication date: 11 November 2015
Abstract
Purpose
We examine the national regulatory framework in Turkey and its interactions with actors at various levels that set the stage for the shift from a Fordist economy to a post-Fordist one. Industrial maize production expanded in the 2000s in the face of a decline in agricultural employment and state-supported conventional crop production. We use the corporate maize industry as a case to demonstrate the change in regulation and its impacts.
Methodology/approach
Utilizing a strategic-relational approach, we analyze descriptive statistics on agricultural markets, news, sector reports, and archives of national regulation related to agricultural production and the agri-food industry to identify key actors shaping the transformation of maize production.
Findings
Actors influencing the national regulatory framework come from international and national regulatory institutions, and transnational and national agri-food corporations. Local maize farmers have actively participated in the transformation, thereby offering consent to the process. The Turkish state manages maize production through its national regulatory regime, but the agri-food industry drives the trajectory.
Practical implications
Adopting a strategic-relational approach contributes to our understanding of the dynamics at work in economic restructuring by shedding light on the interactions between political authorities and economic actors. Following a post-Fordist mode of regulation, the Turkish government uses particular political devices in a strategically selective manner, not overtly to enhance the short-term interests of the agri-food industry, but according to the long-term goal of promoting adaptation of agricultural commodity producers to the post-Fordist capitalist accumulation regime.
Originality/value
State institutions utilize the tools of political intervention in markets to ensure the long-term sociopolitical consolidation and legitimation of the post-Fordist accumulation regime.
Keywords
Citation
Borlu, Y. and Glenna, L. (2015), "Fostering Consent in a Post-Fordist Regime: The Case of Industrial Maize Farming in Turkey", States and Citizens: Accommodation, Facilitation and Resistance to Globalization (Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 34), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 17-40. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0278-120420150000034002
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015 Emerald Group Publishing Limited