Metropolitics : the political economy of Istanbul’s rail infrastructure

Abstract

This dissertation narrates the historical trajectory of Istanbul’s urban rail infrastructure to trace the transformation of state-business relations and urban politics under late Turkish capitalism. Urban rail transit infrastructure, de spite being an aspiring political vision throughout late Ottoman and Repub lican history, would only be realized after the introduction of neoliberal re forms and a novel legal-institutional environment following the 1980 coup d’état. However, this vision would be partially realized throughout the first two decades of Turkish neoliberalism. Only after the financial and political opportunities and reconfigurations during the AKP era and following the 2008- 2009 crisis, a pervasive infrastructural transformation would take hold. This dissertation, building upon mainly media archives, legal documents, ur ban plans, infrastructure contracts, market research databases and interviews, is preoccupied with the political purposes and meanings that urban rail infra structure was imbued with throughout the four decades of Turkish neoliber alism. The dissertation, with a sensitivity towards continuities and ruptures between each political era, posits that that the historical and contemporary significance of urban rail projects within late Turkish politics lies in its con troversial utilization in the service of patronal ties and its endowment with an ambivalent urban vision, torn between urban populism and global city aspi rations. The dissertation concludes that this neoliberal transformation of ur ban rail infrastructure, rather than being decisively marked by coherence, turns out to be ridden with contradictions, shortcomings and political ten sions, which helps one to posit a “revisionist” take on the academic threads of neoliberalism and economic reforms.