14 - Development Planning on the Ground

Summary

Chapter 14 analyzes the political-economic context of Tinbergen’s work as development planning expert in Turkey between 1960 and 1966. Tinbergen was brought in against the will of the Turkish government, at the urging of the OECD and the IMF. After the military coup later that year, he played a key role in the founding of the State Planning Office as well as its institutional design. The SPO was modeled after the Dutch CPB, and how its political setting differed from the planning bureau in the Netherlands is analyzed. Many of the development planning efforts of the SPO were met with hostility in Turkish politics and in the economy. The chapter traces how Tinbergen sought to navigate these tensions, frequently unsuccessfully. He hoped to create space for economic expertise above the parties, as he had successfully done in the Netherlands, but structural reforms necessary according to the planning experts quickly became part of the political struggle within the country between the more traditional and liberal agricultural interests, and the more progressive and planning-minded industrial interests. The chapter highlights the importance of the international planning ideology and economic interests of the West in shaping the outcomes of Tinbergen’s efforts in Turkey.