Diffuse Interest Groups and Regulatory Policy Change: Financial Consumer Protection in Turkey

Abstract

This article examines why and how a regulation on retail banking fees, commissions, and charges emerged in Turkey after a long period of regulatory forbearance. The article shows that when regulatory forbearance caused stasis, and the “statist”, exclusionary policymaking context limited consumer groups’ access to the policymaking process, consumer groups challenged the policy regime of the banking sector and the regulator by appealing to another state actor, the Ministry of Customs and Trade. The Ministry took advantage of an opportunity structure to pass a new consumer protection law which assigned a de facto mandate on the regulatory agency to regulate fees, commissions, and charges. The article argues that the regulatory policy change was a product of a policy regime change with the Ministry emerging as a veto player, as it redefined the institutional arrangements in the policymaking process, and imposed its preferences and its stricter policy approach. As such, the article contributes to our understanding of the conditions of how diffuse interest groups can trigger regulatory policy change, but more importantly policy regime change.