Crisis of Capitalism and (De-)Politicisation of Monetary Policymaking: Reflections from Hungary and Turkey

This article explores the changes in monetary policymaking in Hungary and Turkey in the context of the post-2008 global financial crisis and restructuring. Both countries went through a thorough restructuring process in the pre-2008 context. While this process has introduced and consolidated depoliticised forms of governing to a certain degree in both countries, we suggest that the latest crisis has contributed to the emergence of a politicisation process. In the Hungarian case, these processes are reflected in both discursive attempts and the instalment of visible centralised control over the management of money. In Turkey, intensifying discursive attempts to politicize monetary policy have not led to an explicit change in the formally depoliticised character of central banking until recently but politicised other policy areas. In both countries, the process has accompanied the entrenchment of increasingly oppressive discourse and practices as part of the overall management of the crisis-ridden capitalist social relations. The paper aims to explore these similarities and differences within a critical political economy approach to state, governing strategies and (de)politicisation and to contribute to advancing research beyond the established case studies in the existing literature.