The political economy of Turkish Conservative Democracy as a governmental strategy of industrial relations between Islamism, neoliberalism and social democracy

Since 2002, the incumbent Justice and Development Party’s (JDP) industrial relations (IR) policy has dichotomized Turkish public opinion. Positions have ranged from socialism to neoliberalism and include a reference to Islamism. This article argues that this ambiguity stems from the confrontation between the JDP’s Islamist sociopolitical background and the confines of Turkish IR under the pressure of neoliberal restructuring. Thus, it aims to crystallize the party’s Conservative Democratic identity in relation to IR by examining how the JDP’s cosmopolitan nature embraces its Islamist, neoliberal and social democratic foundations. This article concludes that, in its current form, Conservative Democracy as an IR governmental strategy has less to do with pure Islamism, neoliberalism or social democracy than with a ‘hard pragmatism’, which is located between the suppression of and support for organized labour under the shadow of the party’s politico-economic agenda.