IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ijurrs/v38y2014i2p609-627.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Law, Property and Ambiguity: The Uses and Abuses of Legal Ambiguity in Remaking Istanbul's Informal Settlements

Author

Listed:
  • Tuna Kuyucu

Abstract

What is the role of legal ambiguity in the creation and institutionalization of private property regimes? In what ways does the (ab)use of legal ambiguities affect market-making processes? I address these questions through a detailed analysis of two large-scale urban renewal projects in Istanbul that impose a formal private property regime on informal settlements. My research reveals that without the strategic utilization of legal ambiguities and administrative arbitrariness by public and private actors, private property cannot be easily created and hence capitalist markets cannot function efficiently. My findings challenge the assumptions of several social science traditions such as neoclassical and neoinstitutionalist economics, as well as most works within the law and economics tradition regarding the relationship between law, property and economic development. These approaches to economic development are underpinned by the legal certainty that private property entails as the most important element for an efficient economic order. However, in their unconditional support for private ownership, they fail to realize the degree of legal ambiguity and administrative arbitrariness needed to create the private property regime in the first place. As such their arguments remain theoretically and empirically incomplete. A more complete analysis of the relationship between law and economic dynamics must focus on how private property is constructed, and the extent to which legal ambiguities and loopholes are utilized in this process.

Suggested Citation

  • Tuna Kuyucu, 2014. "Law, Property and Ambiguity: The Uses and Abuses of Legal Ambiguity in Remaking Istanbul's Informal Settlements," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 609-627, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:38:y:2014:i:2:p:609-627
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/1468-2427.12026
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harvey, David, 2007. "A Brief History of Neoliberalism," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199283279.
    2. Tuna Kuyucu & Özlem Ünsal, 2010. "‘Urban Transformation’ as State-led Property Transfer: An Analysis of Two Cases of Urban Renewal in Istanbul," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(7), pages 1479-1499, June.
    3. Varley, Ann, 2007. "Gender and Property Formalization: Conventional and Alternative Approaches," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 1739-1753, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rita Lambert, 2021. "Land Trafficking and the Fertile Spaces of Legality," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(1), pages 21-38, January.
    2. Pablo Mendez & Noah Quastel, 2015. "Subterranean Commodification: Informal Housing and the Legalization of Basement Suites in Vancouver from 1928 to 2009," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(6), pages 1155-1171, November.
    3. Esin Özdemir & Ayda Eraydin, 2017. "Fragmentation in Urban Movements: The Role of Urban Planning Processes," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 727-748, September.
    4. Joanna Kusiak, 2019. "Legal Technologies of Primitive Accumulation: Judicial Robbery and Dispossession‐by‐Restitution in Warsaw," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(4), pages 649-665, July.
    5. Fliertje Hulsbergen & Gerben Nooteboom, 2023. "Child Sex Tourism: Ambiguous Spaces in Bali," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 114(1), pages 28-42, February.
    6. Tahire Erman, 2016. "Formalization by the State, Re-Informalization by the People: A Gecekondu Transformation Housing Estate as Site of Multiple Discrepancies," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 425-440, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rao, Nitya, 2017. "Assets, Agency and Legitimacy: Towards a Relational Understanding of Gender Equality Policy and Practice," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 43-54.
    2. Howard Stein, 2012. "The Neoliberal Policy Paradigm and the Great Recession," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 59(4), pages 421-440, September.
    3. Jamie Redman, 2020. "The Benefit Sanction: A Correctional Device or a Weapon of Disgust?," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 25(1), pages 84-100, March.
    4. Grzegorz W. Kolodko, 2009. "A Two-thirds Rate of Success: Polish Transformation and Economic Development, 1989-2008," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2009-14, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Andrew Crookston, 2012. "Thomas J. Bassett and Alex Winter-Nelson: The atlas of world hunger," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 29(2), pages 277-278, June.
    6. Cohen, Joseph N, 2010. "Neoliberalism’s relationship with economic growth in the developing world: Was it the power of the market or the resolution of financial crisis?," MPRA Paper 24527, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Esin Özdemir & Ayda Eraydin, 2017. "Fragmentation in Urban Movements: The Role of Urban Planning Processes," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 727-748, September.
    8. Yang Shen, 2015. "Why Does the Government Fail to Improve the Living Conditions of Migrant Workers in Shanghai? Reflections on the Policies and the Implementations of Public Rental Housing under Neoliberalism," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(1), pages 58-74, January.
    9. Magdalena Correo Henao & Daniela Amaya Castro & Mario Andrés Ospina Ramírez & Federico Suárez Ricaurte, 2021. "Pobreza y desigualdad prospectiva 2030. XXI jornadas de derecho constitucional constitucionalismo en ransformación. Prospectiva 2030," Books, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Derecho, number 1298.
    10. Blocker, Christopher P. & Ruth, Julie A. & Sridharan, Srinivas & Beckwith, Colin & Ekici, Ahmet & Goudie-Hutton, Martina & Rosa, José Antonio & Saatcioglu, Bige & Talukdar, Debabrata & Trujillo, Carlo, 2013. "Understanding poverty and promoting poverty alleviation through transformative consumer research," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1195-1202.
    11. Lise Arena & Leonard Minkes, 2019. "The virtues of dialogue between academics and businessmen," Post-Print hal-01620574, HAL.
    12. Baum, Fran & Ziersch, Anna & Freeman, Toby & Javanparast, Sara & Henderson, Julie & Mackean, Tamara, 2020. "Strife of Interests: Constraints on integrated and co-ordinated comprehensive PHC in Australia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    13. Clara Irazábal, 2009. "One Size Does Not Fit All: Land Markets and Property Rights for the Construction of the Just City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 558-563, June.
    14. Diana Floegel & Kaitlin L. Costello, 2022. "Methods for a feminist technoscience of information practice: Design justice and speculative futurities," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 73(4), pages 625-634, April.
    15. Sean Brayton, 2012. "Working Stiff(s) on Reality Television during the Great Recession," Societies, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-17, October.
    16. Wilkinson, Michael & Lokdam, Hjalte, 2018. "Law and political economy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 87544, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Ravenscroft, Sue & Williams, Paul F., 2009. "Making imaginary worlds real: The case of expensing employee stock options," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(6-7), pages 770-786, August.
    18. Lucy Burke, 2017. "Imagining a future without dementia: fictions of regeneration and the crises of work and sustainability," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 3(1), pages 1-9, December.
    19. Aisling Gallagher, 2014. "The ‘Caring Entrepreneur’? Childcare Policy and Private Provision in an Enterprising Age," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 46(5), pages 1108-1123, May.
    20. Bryce Peake, 2018. "Methodological Perspectives on British Commercial Telegraphy and the Colonial Struggle over Democratic Connections in Gibraltar, 1914–1941," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(1), pages 21-33.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:38:y:2014:i:2:p:609-627. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0309-1317 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.