Türkiye’s megaprojects and the contradictions of capital accumulation: Economic dilemmas faced by the Turkish state

Abstract This paper is concerned with evaluating megaprojects and their failures in Türkiye in the contradictory foundations of capitalism under the AKP rule. It discusses how the Turkish state’s interventions through megaproject investments have created economic dilemmas in terms of fiscal crisis, currency crisis and legitimacy crisis. In doing so, this paper draws on Jessop’s strategic relational approach to the state as the theoretical framework. Accordingly, beyond considering the success or failure of state interventions in a specific period, I argue that these interventions should be discussed in terms of their contradictions, which, while solving certain economic problems, persistently tend to create new ones. Hence, the contribution of this paper is to demonstrate how the production of space through state spatial interventions rests on the contradictory nature of capitalism, as exemplified by the case of Türkiye’s megaprojects and their failures.