28 ISSN 1712-8056[Print] ISSN 1923-6697[Online] www.cscanada.net www.cscanada.org Canadian Social Science Vol. 11, No. 4, 2015, pp. 28-39 DOI: 10.3968/6616 Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture Does “Embeddedness” Create Miracles? The Case of the “Anatolian Tigers” in Turkey M. Evren Tok [a],* [a] Dr.Qatar Faculty Islamic Studies, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar. * Corresponding author. Received 20 January 2015; accepted 15 March 2015 Published online 26 April 2015 Abstract Drawing on different forms of embeddedness, this study critically examines the so-called economic miracles in the Anatolian region of Turkey, which are commonly known as the Anatolian Tigers. By decomposing the stories of the Anatolian Tigers as new loci of economic growth since 1990s, forms of embeddedness illustrate the spatio- institutional factors affecting both economic and non- economic realms with varying distillations from local institutional assets. These conditions became instrumental for both collectivizing interests of the leading local capitalists and disguising the negative consequences of the rapidly industrializing and urbanizing cities of Anatolia. Through open ended in-depth interviews conducted with leading actors in the cities of Anatolia, content analysis of the available resources published by local organizations and media, this study illustrates the role of multiple forms of embedding mechanisms that orchestrated “fragile” local economic miracles in Turkey. Key words: Anatolian tigers; Forms of embeddedness; Turkey; Urban transformation Tok, M. E. (2015). Does “Embeddedness” Create Miracles? The Case of the “Anatolian Tigers” in Turkey. Canadian Social Science, 11 (4), 28-39. Available from: http://www.cscanada.net/index.php/css/article/view/6616 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/6616 INTRODUCTION At the outset, complexities between the culture and the economy, the role of culture, particularly religion, are evident in the rather distinct growth of Anatolian cities since the 1980s. Yet, the economic, political and social transformations that occurred in Anatolia throughout the 1990s and 2000s sheds light on the dynamics of neoliberal growth of socially embedded economic relations. A crucial facet of this transformation has been the rapid industrialization of the Anatolian cities, commonly referred to as ‘Anatolian Tigers’, and their opening up to world markets. Overall, investigating the urban political economy of rapidly growing Anatolian cities offers a unique opportunity to better understand the dynamics of the interplay between globalization, local dynamics and urban transformation. The rapid transformation during the modernization period in the early 1920s was followed by increasingly neoliberal development policies accompanied by high levels of urbanisation and industrialisation in 1980s. Following the 1980 coup d’etat, which brought a shift towards flexible production, a group of Anatolian businessmen and a new discourse of representing conservative/Islamic business people’s interests emerged. Against the historically established Turkish Industrialists and Businesspeople Association (TUSİAD), many city-based interest representation organizations flourished throughout the Anatolian region, such as the Industrialist and Businesspeople Associations (SİADs), Chambers of Trade/Industry and civil society organizations. In this context, the buoyance of the emerging conservative bourgeoisie brought in train a new term, which captured the economically booming cities of Anatolia, fuelled by the bourgeoisie and their interest representation organizations, namely the Anatolian Tigers. The Anatolian Tigers refer to the cities of Kayseri, Gaziantep, Çorum, Konya, Eskişehir, and Denizli, all of which have experienced notable economic growth beginning in the 1980s. Flexible production, as Buğra (1998, p.522) argues, played a central role in the