Costruire un'economia: la Turchia kemalista tra impero e repubblica

Abstract

The birth of the Turkish economy system in 1923 can not be considered as a full watershed with the imperial past. The process of this economic change is far from the model of the Ancien Regime, tied to a technocratic administration system. On the contrary, since the nineteenth century, it progressively and slowly approaches to the Western capitalist model. The administration of the Young Turks had already embodied this protectionist model, in order to defend the Ottoman’s embryonic industrial system. However, the capitulations, the advantageous customs taxes for some kinds of products, the banking system and the public finance managed by the European powers, made the efforts of the young Turkey vain. Not even after the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, the republican Turkey was able to shake off the mortgages inherited by the imperial past. Only during the 1930s the new Turkish republic was able to achieve its independent economic policy with state characteristics.