- Blame Shifting Politics in Autocracies: Evidence from Turkey (with Edward Goldring and Jonas Willibald Schmid, under review)
How effective are blame shifting strategies for autocrats following large-scale natural disasters? Autocrats have various tools to deal with events that could harm their popularity and often resort to blame shifting politics. We conducted a survey experiment in Turkey following the earthquakes of early 2023, and we find evidence of backlash effects when autocrats attribute negative outcomes to a force majeure and blame the opposition.
- A Story of Decay and Growth: Bureaucratic Autonomy, Growth Regimes, and Regulatory Governance in Turkey (with M. Kerem Coban, under review)
Political decisions over economic growth policies influence the degree of bureaucratic autonomy and regulatory governance dynamics in developing settings. This paper problematizes how bureaucratic autonomy in regulatory agencies is compromised due to the fragilities of a credit-led growth model based on recent findings from Turkey.
- The Long Shadow of the Past: Vocational Education Policy in Argentina after the Crisis (draft completed)
Following the 2001 economic crisis, the Partido Justicialista government passed a major reform bill in 2005 to revamp a flailing vocational education and training system in Argentina. Since then, the number of students enrolled in these programs has increased, and new public vocational schools were opened. Yet, the skill formation process remains highly unequal and fragmented. This paper argues that historical legacies cast a long shadow, preventing the formation of effective reform coalitions much needed for building vocational skills that balance market demands with the pedagogical needs of the students and workers.
- Instrumentalizing the Banking Sector? Shifting the Growth Model and Subordinate Financialization in Turkey and Hungary (with Dora Piroska and M. Kerem Coban, draft completed)
This paper problematizes why and how the banking sector is instrumentalized to transform existing growth models and what role the banking sector plays in this process. Based on evidence from Hungary and Turkey, we argue that the constellation of coalitional politics, national position in the global financial hierarchy, and the push to sustain economic growth prompted both leaders to increase political control over credit allocation in different ways.
- From Welfare to Debt: the New Governance of Public Goods Provision and Private Debt in Emerging Markets (draft in progress)
This paper argues that broader changes in the global economic system with growing dominance of financial markets and the decline of state in public goods provision has led to a major change where governments combine privatized welfare systems with policies that enable easier access to debt in varying ways. The outcome is a broader policy shift from expanding access to public welfare programs to governance of private debt in the developing world. The paper surveys these transformations by comparing emerging debt regimes of three small open economies: Argentina, Malaysia and Turkey.
- Space Policy and Industrial Development in Emerging Capitalist Economies: Malaysia and Turkey in Comparative Perspective (draft in progress)
In recent years, several emerging capitalist countries, from Argentina to Turkey to Malaysia, have significantly increased their investments in national space agencies as part of their industrial development program. Building on the divergent experiences of Turkey and Malaysia—two emerging capitalist economies classified in the upper-middle income group—this paper problematizes how the political landscape influences the priorities assigned to space programs in countries that are aggregated into global financial networks on unequal terms.
- From ESG to Authoritarian Resilience: the Rise of Green Bonds in the Periphery of Europe (draft in progress)
This paper argues that the recent surge in demand for green bonds has inadvertently bridged a critical financing gap for authoritarian regimes, particularly in the aftermath of the global credit crunch following the 2008 financial crisis. Drawing upon exploratory case studies and descriptive data from Hungary and Turkey, the paper illustrates how authoritarian governments have leveraged the green bond market to secure funds for ostensibly sustainable projects.
In Hiatus
- Does Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Increase the Quality of Democracy? An Instrumental Variable Analysis (with Jonas Willibald Schmid, draft completed)
Does FDI improve or worsen democratic quality in the long run? Based on instrumental variable analysis, this paper finds that a rise in the inward FDI stock increases the probability of a decline across major components of democratic quality. The findings further reveal that the probability of a negative change is strong and robust. By contrast, the amount of inward FDI stock has no continuous effect on democratic quality.
- The Financial Roots of Climate Change (draft completed)
Using data from NASA's GISTEMP, CMIP5 models, and S&P500 Index, this paper argues that pressures to boost corporate profits and shareholder value encourage companies to cut a lot of corners in managing their environmental externalities. The accumulated impact of this behavior adds further momentum to global greenhouse gas production and contributes to greater swings in temperature anomalies.