Abstract:

The accumulation crisis, which was seemed initially in the developed capitalist countries in the beginning of 1970s, brought the end of Keynesian policies that were implemented after the Second World War as a solution for the Great Depression. This time, neo-liberalism had come into prominence for the solution of the crisis, and started a transition process to a new economic and social order. In contrast to the Keynesian period, minimizing the duties, responsibilities and services of the state was one of the primary purposes of the neo-liberalism. In the direction of ‘minimizing the state’, privatization policy had become a substantial agenda of the many governments of 1980s and had priority in terms of implementation. Also in Turkey, first steps towards to the privatization policy had taken by 1980s. Firstly, Turkey’s transition to the neoliberalism had started with the decisions which had been taken in 24th January 1980, and this was followed by the acts which provided the juridical basic of the privatization. Similar to the many countries around the world, early implementations of the privatization policy began in the middle of 1980s in Turkey and had been continuing nowadays. Justice and Development Party (AKP), which came to the power with the November 2002 elections, represents the breaking point in terms of implementation; 86 percent of the all privatizations between the years 1986-2014 realized in AKP period . In this regard, AKP distinguishes itself from the prior governments. One of the main factors that create the distinction is the privatization of the large-scale energy, transportation and communication enterprises/assets (TUPRAS, TELEKOM, harbors etc.) by AKP. Turkish Republic State Railways (TCDD), which is one of these large-scale public enterprises, and the railway service, has passed a new period in the last years. The railway service had been formed as a public monopoly with the nationalization process of the railways, and TCDD, which was established in 1927, became responsible for provisioning of the service. TCDD was formed as a verticalintegrated public enterprise that has the all direct/in-direct components of the railway service. The efforts to privatize the railway service and TCDD started in 1980s, but could not reach to the end until AKP period. With AKP, the process started with the privatization and shutting down of the assets or units that in-direct for the service. The decree law of 655 in 2011 and the act of 6461 in 2013 opened a new period for the railway service, and aimed to privatize the direct components of the service. The decree law of 655 has removed the public monopoly, liberalized the service and formed the units in the Ministry of Transport for ‘the regulation and the audition’ of the service. The act of 6461 is about TCDD directly and aims the fragmentation of TCDD to prepare it for the privatization. Fragmentation is a method, which is designed by European Union, World Bank, OECD and experienced in many countries, that aims to break the vertical-integrated organization structure. This paper aims to analyze AKP’s position with regard to the privatization policies and discusses the privatization process of the railway service, which is a public service and monopoly, and TCDD, which is responsible of provision of the service as a public enterprise. Privatization process also analyzed through European Union comparatively on the basis of the context and the method that used for privatization

Keywords: