A study on political economy of peripheral and advanced capitalism : a simultaneous transformation with different results in the post-1980 United States, United Kingdom and Turkey

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the post-1980 neo-liberal transformation experienced in the United States, the United Kingdom and Turkey. These are the countries which started to implement neo-liberal policies simultaneously under Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Turgut Özal administrations. I developed a political economy outlook on these countries in such a fashion that compares welfare state implementations to neo-liberal policies. After having analyzed four main macroeconomic indicators which are real GDP growth, inflation rates, real interest rates and real wage rates in three countries, we see that the outcomes of the transformation were sharply different in the advanced capitalist countries, namely the United States and the United Kingdom, from those of in peripheral countries like Turkey.