EXTENDED SUMMARY

This study focuses on the Center for Development of Public Enterprise (KİGEM), which has a unique place in the anti-privatization struggle in Turkey; it examines its history in terms of its basic characteristics, activities, disintegration process and position in this struggle. The study is based on the examination of documents in the KİGEM archive and in-depth interviews with the members and managers of KİGEM. In this context, the archive of KİGEM was studied, the personal archive of İlter Ertuğrul, who was the Secretary General of KİGEM, was examined, and outgoing and incoming e-mails of KİGEM were scanned. The collected data was analyzed with a qualitative approach. Privatizations have been one of the main rings of neoliberal transformation in the world and in Turkey, and were implemented with increasing momentum in the 1980s and 1990s. The search for struggle against this agenda in Turkey has existed together with some problem areas related to the framework of anti-privatization action and ideology. First of all, Türk-İş and its affiliated unions, which were organized in public workplaces under the influence of pro-privatization views, experienced wavering in their anti- privatization attitudes, were under the influence of the views that public enterprises were a burden on the state and that the privatization of some “non-strategic” enterprises might not be harmful, and did not believe that privatizations could be realized. , they considered themselves indispensable and tended to remain silent until it was the turn of the enterprises in which they were organized. These tendencies started to reverse towards the mid-1990s and the unions entered into an effective struggle. KİGEM was born in the privatization process, which is a fundamental agenda of global capitalism and neoliberalism, and in the seeking for an anti-privatization struggle. KİGEM was established within the union movement, within Harb-İş, in 1994, at a point where the efforts of intellectuals/academics and a union struggle came together, and gained Foundation status in 1996. The architects of this meeting, such as Mümtaz Soysal and Korkut Boratav, and the pioneers of this meeting, such as Harb-İş and Petrol-İş managers, should also be commemorated. KİGEM gained foundation status in 1996 and continued its activities within Harb-İş, Tek Gıda-İş and Hava-İş until 2014, when it was legally abolished. KİGEM set out to protect public enterprises, increase and develop their efficiency, and fight against neoliberalism and privatization. KİGEM set out to protect public enterprises, increase their efficiency and develop them; however, it has been in an intense ideological, legal and operational struggle against privatization. KİGEM; With its actions and activities such as filing lawsuits, organizing scientific events, making publications and press releases, preparing news bulletins, and providing training, it has come to the fore as a leading force shaping and a moving subject of the anti-privatization struggle in Turkey. The meeting of intellectuals/academics and unions is the main factor that characterizes KİGEM. KİGEM, which was mainly based on the unions within which it was established and operated, was abandoned by the same union movement, underwent an “indirect liquidation” within the unique conditions of Turkey’s transformation process, and became inactive step by step and was legally dissolved. The study deals with the story of KİGEM’s struggle from leadership to dereliction.