It is believed that the coming to power of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey in 2002 brought a renewal of foreign and domestic policy, which is associated with a number of successes in the development of the country and strengthening its international image. Innovations in Turkey's economic strategy are also noted. But an indicator of the real depth of the changes that have taken place could be considered overcoming such an important trend in the economic policy of the Republic of Turkey, which, starting from the second half of the 20th century, became pronounced populism, which turned out to be the result of the transition to a multi-party system and the associated acute inter-party struggle " on the¹. Only in this case, the processes of macroeconomic stabilization could become irreversible, and economic growth could become truly sustainable. That is why the question of how innovative the economic policy of the ruling party really is in terms of breaking the continuity of the populist tradition is so relevant.

Keywords: populism, economic risks, socially oriented market economy, social policy, social assistance, selective nature of social assistance.

The economic populism of the AKP's predecessor parties made itself felt loudly through budget deficits, increased domestic and foreign borrowing by the state, and finally high inflation, which was the result of governments ' wasteful efforts to win over the electorate. It should be clarified that the author proceeds from the definition of populism proposed by R. Dornbusch and S. Edwards in the work "Macroeconomics of populism in Latin America", understanding it as focusing the government's attention on accelerating growth and income redistribution, ignoring the risks of inflation, financial deficit, and others [Dornbusch and Edwards, 1991, p. 9].

As for the period of AKP rule, a significant part of it occurred during the years of implementation of stabilization loan agreements with the IMF. Due to this circumstance, this period was marked by a strong financial stabilization against the background of tighter control over public spending and a persistent desire to reduce public debt: the budget deficit decreased from 14.6% of GDP in 2002 to 3.3% in 2010, although this value is not the lowest during the AKP administration. So, in 2005, the deficit was 1.3%, and in 2006 - 0.7% of GDP. The ratio of government domestic debt to GDP fell from 55% in 2002 to 37% in 2010. But even in this case, there was a slight increase in the indicator against the background of mi-

¹ This problem was analyzed in detail by the author in the article " On a new approach to the periodization of the economic theory of the Republic of Turkey "[Vostok (Oriens), 2010, N 4, p. 86-101].

the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. The average annual inflation rate decreased from 45% in 2002 to 8.6% in 2010. [Ekonomik Rapor 2005, s. 79; Ekonomik Rapor 2006, s. 78; Ekonomik Rapor 2009, s. 78, 135; Ekonomik Rapor 2010, s. 89, 144]. Thus, it would seem that in the context of the policy of fiscal restraint, the government has lost the traditional tools of populist economic policy. In addition, it is likely that the Justice and Development Party's very long period in power, by Turkish standards, created prerequisites for easing the "populist pressure" on the government. But the opposite situation is also possible: the party is kept in power by some new forms of building relations with the electorate, which, apparently, in conditions when it has become impossible to use such populist measures as increasing the wages of employees in the public sector and increasing the capacity of the national market, are based on a loudly declaring social policy governments.

So, the main task of this article is to analyze the social policy of the government and answer the question whether it can be considered as a modified form of economic populism policy.

The leaders of the Justice and Development Party have repeatedly voiced their intention to focus on social policy in their pre-election statements in 2002, when they announced plans to reduce the primary budget surplus proposed by the IMF ² (the amount by which budget revenues exceed expenditures excluding interest payments on the national debt) in favor of increasing social spending. Speaking to the Parliament after the election victory on November 23, 2002, the new Prime Minister A. Gul announced the program of his government [58. Hukumet Programs, 2002]. The size of the primary budget surplus was supposed to be planned in such a way as, on the one hand, to ensure an irreversible reduction in public debt, and on the other, to take into account the needs of economic growth and social policy (emphasis added).

On April 5, 2003, the Turkish plenipotentiaries signed another Letter of Intent, ³ which emphasized: "While remaining committed to the policy of disinflation and stabilization, the Government recognizes that social protection of the most vulnerable segments of the population is vital for the successful continuation of reforms." In this regard, the Government intended, while remaining within the budget, to increase the role of social spending through more selective targeting of social programs and the use of the main part of available resources to support the most needy groups of the population (emphasis added) [Republic of Turkey Prime Ministru..., 2003].

The subsequent developments confirmed the seriousness of the Government's intentions to strengthen social policy. Analysis of the structure of budget expenditures indicates a noticeable increase in their part directed to social purposes. This raises the question of how to incorporate the latter into the budget, which is subordinated to the general goal of limiting expenditures and controlling the deficit. One of the methods of maintaining its relative balance was to reduce investment costs: if in 2002 the share of investment in the entire system of public expenditures was 14.2%, then in 2009 it was only 8.3%, and in 2010 it was 10.1% [Ekonomik Rapor 2003, p. 78; Ekonomik Rapor 2010, p.78]. 88]. As a result, the share of the state in the total volume of investment in the national economy decreased from 32% in 2002 to less than 20% by the end of the first decade of the 2000s (Istatistik gostergeler 1923-2008, p. 746). But if in the 1990s-early 2000s, the reduction and retention of low - level investments in the economy of the Republic of Belarus is still very high.-

² Since 1999, credit cooperation between Turkey and the IMF has been initiated, in which the efforts of the Turkish authorities to stabilize the economy were supported by financial assistance from the Fund.

³ The letter is addressed to the IMF management and provides an analysis of the state of the country's economy and outlines the Government of Turkey's macroeconomic program for the coming period.

if the increase in inflation spending was unavoidable due to the pressure on the budget from interest payments on public debt servicing, then the success of stabilization (the share of interest payments on public debt in total budget expenditures decreased from 42% in 2003 to 16% in 2010) theoretically allows the government to resume more active investment activities, but in practice it is not ready for this it strives. At the same time, salaries of civil servants are kept at a stable level - about 20% of the total budget payments. Together, these circumstances provide opportunities for the growth of social expenditures of the budget. As a result, the authorities even managed to come up with a budget that is also social from the point of view of the formal structure of expenditures: if for a long time their main item was interest payments on public debt, then as a result of the government's efforts to financially stabilize and activate social policy, the volume of transfers under the item "health care, pension it came very close to the share of interest payments - 19.6% and 19.8%, respectively, and in 2010 exceeded them, reaching 18.7% against 16.4% [Ekonomik Rapor 2003, 2004, s. 86; Ekonomik Rapor 2010, 2011, s. 92].

One of the main reasons for the increase in social expenditures of the budget was the reform of the social insurance system, which was actively implemented during the period of the Justice and Development Party's stay in power. The reform involves, on the one hand, changes in the pension system, and on the other - in the system of public access to health services. The implementation of both aspects of the reform is part of the conditions for granting IMF credit assistance and is also prescribed as part of the process of preparing Turkey for EU membership. The first area of reform is the need to achieve a balance in the public finance system (the amount of budget subsidies for the state social insurance system increased mainly due to the wastefulness of the pension system from 0.3% of GDP in 1990 to 4.5% in 2004; the cumulative amount of the need for additional funding from the budget during this period was 110% GDP) [Duyulmus, 2009]. This area of reform is associated with such unpopular measures as raising the retirement age and changing the principles of pension accrual in the direction of reducing its share relative to the insured person's salary. Therefore, in the Pre - Launch Economic Program of the Republic of Turkey of 2006 - an official government document that assesses the current state of the Turkish economy, often in comparison with EU countries, and plans further steps to ensure the country's accession to the EU-changes in the field of pension provision were explained only by one dry phrase - "in order to ensure financial viability and achieve the current long-term balance of the pension system " [Republic of Turkey. Pre-Accession..., 2006, p. 96].

The second direction of the reform-in the health sector-in addition to the goal of deepening Turkey's integration into the European Union meets the strategic interests of the ruling party and can be considered as a worthy compensation for the inevitable revision of the pension system. Understanding the essence of this reform is impossible without a general understanding of the structure and principles of functioning of the system of access to health services in the pre-reform period. At that time, there were three State social insurance organizations in Turkey. They performed the tasks of both pension provision and health insurance for persons who paid contributions to them on time. Since 1992, the country has implemented the green Card system, which provides free access to health insurance in the form of a limited set of services for the poor population who are not covered

social insurance system, as well as the unemployed ⁴. Unemployed people who did not have a green card were denied access to free medical treatment unless they were family members of the insured person. In addition, they were able to use special medical programs from time to time, which, however, were not of a regular nature. In addition to the State social insurance institutions, the Health Ministry, universities (university hospitals), the Ministry of Defense (hospitals at its disposal), as well as some private agencies and institutes provided the functioning of the health insurance system. As a result, the opportunities for obtaining medical services were determined by the specific status of the employee or the availability of a "green card", and the quality of medical services varied greatly depending on the institution that provided them. Turkish researchers O. Hamzaoglu and J.I. Yavuz cites data that convincingly show that the country's population has very uneven access to health services: in 2003, 1.7 children in rural areas accounted for every child in the city who died before reaching the age of one year, the same ratio for the west and east of the country was 1:1.9. In the same year, 2003, in the western Marmara region of the country, one midwife accounted for 5,487 women in labor, and in the South-Eastern region - for 7826 [Hamzaoglu and Yavuz, 2009, s. 648-649]. At the same time, according to another author, M. Onur, in the 2000s. More than half of the green card holders, i.e. those with the most limited access to health insurance services, were located in the east and south-east of the country [Onur, 2011, p. 193].

The main idea of the reform is to create a unified health insurance system with the aim of covering all citizens with basic health services, including those who do not have the status of officially employed, i.e. ensuring universal access to health services on an equal basis. To this end, it was planned to replace the disparate entities that operated in the field of providing medical services with a single health agency - the Social Insurance Society. Mandatory health insurance premiums are set for everyone with an income above the poverty level (in the amount of 12% of the amount of income exceeding two minimum wages), while for those with an income below the established level (less than 1/3 of the minimum wage per family member), as well as for children and adolescents under the age of 18, contributions are paid by the State. Such a socially oriented concept certainly deserved a more detailed description in official documents than the pension reform. The aforementioned Pre-Offensive Economic Program of the Republic of Turkey commented as follows on Law No. 5510 "On Social Security and Universal Health Insurance" of 2006: "... medical services have been given a common standard, and a system of compulsory universal health insurance has been established... The list and principles of financing were established for all citizens in such a way as to collect insurance payments depending on the ability of citizens to pay and establish the payment by the government for those who are unable to pay." The thesis about state participation in providing health care for the poor is repeated in the text of the program and just below: "What is especially important, under the universal health insurance system, contributions for those who are unable to pay will be compensated by the state... and the entire poor population will be covered by the social insurance system in terms of health services " [Republic of Turkey. Pre-Accession..., 2006, p. 96, 98]. The reform was described in a specially published pamphlet of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security with a pronounced propagandistic pathos under the title

⁴ It should be noted that even before the start of the reform, the AKP government was committed to increasing the cost of maintaining the green card system. According to the data of the Turkish researcher O. Metin, the real costs of medical care for green card holders in 2001 increased by 27% compared to the previous year, and in 2006 - by 50% (see for more details: [Onur, 2011, p. 192]).

"Towards a new social security system in Turkey": "Insurance premiums for employees will be paid by employers, for employers and the rich - by themselves, for those in need - by the state, and thus all our citizens will be covered by the health insurance system" [Erdogan, 2009, p. 677].

However, the attempts of the ruling party to attract favorable public attention to the reform of the health care system were largely justified by the objective fact that, according to Turkish authors, for the first time in the history of Turkey, the authorities included in the agenda the understanding of social policy as covering all citizens, and not just those employed in the formal sector [Onur, 2011, s. 192].

The Government was supposed to start paying health insurance premiums for those who are unable to pay on their own from January 1, 2007. Apparently, this is what actually happened, as since 2007 there have been significant changes in the structure of budget expenditures. In 2006, the expenditure item "treasury assistance" included as one of the directions assistance to social insurance organizations, which accounted for about 11% of total budget expenditures. Since 2007, a new direction has appeared in the structure of use of "treasury aid" - expenditures on healthcare, pension provision and social assistance, which absorbed 16% of budget expenditures, although assistance to social insurance organizations has decreased to 0.4%. Nevertheless, the total expenditures for the two "social" items in 2007 exceeded by 5.5 percentage points the expenditures for the only item in 2006 - assistance to social insurance organizations. In 2008, the total expenditure for these two items was 16%, in 2009 - 20%, in 2010-just over 19% [Ekonomik Rapor 2007, 2008, s. 88; Ekonomik Rapor 2010, 2011, s. 92]. The transition to a new health insurance system inevitably required significant public expenditures: according to the estimates of the Turkish researcher S. Erdogan, during the period of the old health insurance system, there were at least 15 million people in Turkey who were not covered by any of its forms and were not at all rich [Erdogan, 2009, p. 677]. Consequently, the costs of health insurance for this very large contingent should have been borne by the State. The Pre-Launch Programs for 2009 and 2011-2013 showed an increase in health care expenditures from 3.7% of GDP in 2002 to 4.5% in 2008, 5.1% in 2009 and 4.5% of GDP in 2010. The increase in expenditures was explained by "the development of the system of providing medical services and increasing their accessibility" [Republic of Turkey. Pre-Accession..., 2009, p. 88; Republic of Turkey. Pre-Accession..., 2011, p. 87].

A broad gesture aimed at the broad masses of the poor to reform the health insurance system, according to a number of Turkish authors, also has an additional audience, perhaps not so numerous, but very influential. The fact is that the reform in the healthcare sector is being implemented within the framework of the so-called neoliberal approach, which involves extending the principles of the market to social sectors, turning medical services into goods that are theoretically purchased by the state at the most favorable price from any player in the market, including private firms. The result of this approach was a noticeable redistribution of funds in favor of representatives of the private sector operating in the medical services market, with a general increase in their cost. Turkish researchers O. Hamzaoglu and J.Yavuz notes that the cost of public hospitals in the total cost of medical services paid for by the Social Insurance Company decreased by 3%, university-by 33%, and private-increased by 64%. As a result, while in 2000, 24% of total public spending on health care was reallocated to the private sector, in 2005 it was reallocated to the private sector. this share has already reached 47%. Thus, the logic of reforming the healthcare system, in their opinion, is as follows:

how to: "By changing the financing system, not only increase spending on health care, but also ensure that more and more of the funds spent are reallocated to the private sector...". Based on their analysis, they draw a very emotional conclusion:" ...the AKP government likes the private sector, prefers it to the public sector, and ensures that public funds are reallocated to private individuals " [Hamzaoglu, Yavuz, 2009, p. 647].

An important component of the state social policy, along with pension insurance and the provision of health insurance services, is social assistance, in other words, state assistance, provided not on a regular basis, but based on the specific needs of the recipient in a particular situation. One of the main channels of its provision is the Social Support and Solidarity Fund ⁵. Thus, in 2007, the Fund's expenditures among all social insurance and social assistance institutions were second only to those for providing medical services to green card holders and Social Insurance payments: 0.1%, 0.46%, and 0.19% of GDP, respectively [Hacimahmutoglu, 2009, s. 103, 111, 135, 161].

The special importance of the Fund in the social assistance system is also noted by many Turkish authors. Thus, J. W. Dujalmus notes that social assistance in Turkey has been significantly developed with the creation of the Social Assistance and Solidarity Fund. He describes the Foundation itself as an institution responsible for providing urgent emergency assistance to citizens who are in a state of deep need, and at the same time being the last hope [Duyulmus, 2009].

The Social Assistance and Solidarity Fund was established in 1986. In December 2004, Law No. 5263 entered into force to strengthen the organizational structure of the Social Assistance and Solidarity Fund. If earlier the General Secretariat, which was a subdivision of the Prime Minister's Office, was responsible for preparing its budget and distributing funds, then Law No. 5263 established a directorate under the Prime Minister's Office to manage the Fund. The Fund's structural strengthening measures were obviously dictated by the AKP Government's desire to further expand its role and influence in the social support system. The special attitude of the Government towards the Fund is probably related to the goals and nature of its functioning, which are extremely close to the Islamic rhetoric of mutual assistance and mutual responsibility of members of the Ummah. Turkish authors A. Bugra and Ch. Keider, noting the connection of the Foundation's concept of functioning with strong social foundations, explains its creation as an attempt to respond to the loss of the family's ability to take care of relatives due to the transition from its traditional to nuclear form. They also note that during the parliamentary discussions on the Foundation's creation, they tried to present it as the embodiment of a modernized version of the Ottoman tradition of charity [Bugra and Keyder, 2005, p. 25].

The basic target setting is reflected in article 1 of the Law on the Establishment of the Social Support and Solidarity Fund: "Provide assistance to people who find themselves in difficulties or need assistance, taking measures to strengthen social justice, ensure a fair distribution of income, and promote social assistance and solidarity" [Hacimahmutoglu, 2009, p. 142]. According to the Turkish researcher X. Hacimahmutoglu," the goal of the Foundation's programs is to provide social assistance to a person literally at the place of residence - in their own neighborhood - and using the most flexible approaches " [Hacimahmutoglu, 2009, p. 126]. The Fund's approach to the needs of a citizen is ensured by the organization of its activities-

⁵ A more accurate translation of the name of the Foundation is the Foundation for Social Assistance and Promotion of Solidarity (Sosyal Yardimla$ma vc Dayanismayi Tcsvik Fonu).

through 973 waqfs (branches) located in each ilch of the country, which is the smallest territorial division.

The mobility of decision-making on social support provides the Fund with its status as one of the three existing extra-budgetary funds in Turkey today. The main part of the Fund's income comes from government transfers provided by tax revenues, and about one-tenth of the income is generated by supporting various budget organizations. But the use of the Fund's funds, despite the fact that they are formed mainly at the expense of the state, due to its extra-budgetary status, is not controlled by the parliament, but is only approved by the Prime Minister and the Fund's Council. On this basis, the Turkish researcher Z. Onish considered the Fund to be an informal channel of aid delivery, which is particularly important in the context of budget constraints, i.e. restrictions on the use of formal channels of redistribution [Onis, 2008, p. 23].

The flexibility of the Social Support and Solidarity Fund, its ability to respond quickly and accurately to specific needs, is achieved through the variety of forms of assistance provided by it, as can be seen in the structure of its expenditures. The main items include expenses for: providing periodic assistance (designed to meet a wide variety of current needs of citizens in need); medical care (payment for hospital treatment, medicines, use of medical materials and tools, mainly for people who are not covered by any type of health insurance); assistance to disabled people (payment for medical insurance). artificial limbs, special vehicles and medical equipment); training in professional skills and employment promotion; education (payment of scholarships to students in need); assistance to families (food assistance provided on the eve of the religious holidays of Eid al-Adha and Ramadan al-Adha, provision of coal, etc.); assistance in case of emergencies (earthquake, fire,etc.). flooding, etc.transfers to the Ministry of National Education to compensate for the costs of providing free textbooks, organizing free lunches for students, etc.; providing housing for low-income citizens.

We will focus on some areas of the Fund's activities that are not strictly specific, i.e. they are actively supported by the state and through other structures. These areas allow us to judge the priorities of the Government's social policy.

A. Bugra and Ch. Keider notes as an important feature of the activities of the Social Support and Solidarity Fund during the AKP's tenure, a significant increase in spending on projects to increase employment. According to their estimates, in 2003 about 1.5% of the Fund's funds were used for such projects, and in the first half of 2004 - already 6%. The authors specify that they are talking about financing some vocational training programs, loans to small businesses and agricultural loans in the framework of social support projects in rural areas. Commenting on the growth of this type of spending by the Fund, Bugra and Keider write: "The increasing importance of these items in the total expenditure of the Fund reflects the view that social support should be conditional on participation in production activities. Indeed, it has been repeatedly stressed at the government level that social support in the form of unconditional grants creates a risk of increasing dependency and pushes the recipient to passivity. "Teach people to fish, not give them fish" is a favorite slogan of officials responsible for social policy, for whom the "right to income" remains mostly an alien concept" (Bugra and Keyder, 2005, p. 30).

Under the current expenditure structure of the Fund, so-called general projects related to vocational training and employment promotion, as well as projects that benefit from social support, are financed

in rural areas. In the structure of the former, there are projects aimed at ensuring profit (business projects), projects for the provision of social services, and integrated projects that mutually ensure and support each other's implementation. The largest area of expenditure in the financing of general projects is precisely business projects ⁶. The Fund supports projects that are aimed at meeting the social needs of citizens in need, ensuring their integration into society and the economy as active producers and generating a sustainable income, and which are projects aimed at creating employment in cities or establishing stable production in rural areas that corresponds to natural conditions. In other words, the goal of business projects is to support long-term activities that would provide an individual or an entire family in need with a means of subsistence, and subsequently profit. The projects implemented should meet local conditions in terms of technical and economic characteristics, have a production focus, be sufficiently labor-intensive, and the goods or services produced should be in demand on the local market. For the implementation of such projects, an interest-free loan of 15 thousand liras is allocated per participant for a period of 8 years. No repayment is made during the first two years of using the loan. The loan is repaid in equal installments over the next six years. Depending on the type of activity chosen, the loan term may be extended. For example, for projects related to fruit growing, it is 11 years. If the recipient intends to use the loan for a livestock project, the loan amount can be increased to 50 thousand liras for sheep breeding, up to 150 thousand liras for dairy farming [T. S. Basbakanlik ... 2010..., 2011, p. 72].

In the second half of the 2000s, the cost of supporting business projects grew steadily in parallel with the number of projects themselves and the number of their participants. The decrease in the number of projects in 2009 was offset by a slight increase in support, although not as noticeable as in 2008. However, it should be borne in mind that 2009 was a year of crisis for the entire Turkish economy (see Table).

Table

Scope of support for business projects by the Social Support and Solidarity Fund

Compiled from: [T. C. Basbakanlik ... 2010..., 2011, p. 75].

Another important activity of the Social Support and Solidarity Fund is providing housing to poor citizens. To understand its social significance, it is necessary to mention some features of the course of urbanization in Turkey. This process, which began in the second half of the twentieth century, was not so much gradual, initiated by the development of industrialization, as an avalanche-like character (in 1950, only a quarter of the country's population lived in cities, and in 1960 - already a third,

⁶ With regard to support for small businesses outside the scope of the Fund's activities, concessional loans from the Office for Support of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (COSGEB) play an important role. KOSGEB's support consists in paying off part of the loan's interest payments. In 2010, more than 43 thousand entrepreneurs received loans totaling about 2 billion rubles. Turkish liras. At the same time, interest payments in the amount of 146.7 thousand rubles. lir on the loans issued were repaid by KOSGEB. 49% of loans were used by microindustry enterprises [KOSGEB 2010..., p. 36].

in 1985-more than half, and at the beginning of the XXI century-two-thirds) [Ulchenko, 2008, p. 68]. The rapid development of agricultural mechanization in the post-war years, followed by the mass displacement of labor from the countryside, was the driving force behind the accelerated urbanization. A mass of former peasants poured into the cities. Since the rate of growth of their numbers significantly outstripped the rate of growth of Turkish industry, migrants formed mainly not the working class, but marginal urban strata that settled in rapidly growing neighborhoods consisting of hastily constructed huts. Soon, large Turkish cities faced an acute housing problem caused by a significant number of citizens who lived in primitive dwellings.

The large number of new urban marginals has made them a significant electoral force with an absolutely simple and obvious basic need for politicians - the need for better quality housing. Their active use in the political game began during the tenure of Prime Minister T. Ozal (1983-1989). But Ozal's main focus was not so much on solving the housing problem of rural migrants in principle, but rather on legitimizing their ownership rights to illegally built shacks. However, some efforts to build new housing were also made and linked to the use of proceeds from privatization. In 1984, the Administration for Housing Construction and Public Corporatization was established under the Council of the same name. Its functions included implementing the privatization program and financing state projects in the field of industrial infrastructure and housing construction. To achieve the latter goal, a Housing Construction fund was established. During the period from 1984 to 1987, about 950 thousand Turkish citizens took advantage of the opportunity to receive housing loans provided by the [Building Turkey's Future..., 2009, p. 9]. As a result, the country has received a significant boost to the development of cooperative construction.

In 1990, it was decided to split the Housing and Public Equity Administration into two separate bodies: the Housing Administration (Toplu Konut Idaresi, TOKI) and the Public Equity Administration. According to the current management of TOKI, "despite the fact that some government initiatives in the field of housing policy were quite effective, in reality, the Housing Administration was gradually moving further away from what was originally planned to be done" [Building Turkey's Future..., 2009, p. 8]. As a result, the Housing Construction Fund ceased to exist in 2001. It was only after the 2002 elections that the TOJ was revived as a significant force. "Realizing that there is a housing crisis in Turkey and that previous attempts to solve it have failed, the new Government of Turkey (AKP - N.Y. government) immediately developed an Urgent Action Plan for Housing and Urban Development in January 2003" [Building Turkey's Future..., 2009, p. 9]. Over the next four years, the Parliament adopted 10 different documents that provided TOKI with organizational and legal powers to transform the landscape of the country's cities. Thus, 64.5 million square meters of land were transferred to the Administration free of charge for the implementation of the housing construction program. TOKI was removed from the Ministry of Public Works and Settlements and placed under the Prime Minister's Administration, which gave it greater autonomy and freedom of action. The following figures indicate an unprecedented intensification of TOKI's activities. From the beginning of the Administration's activity in 1984 to 2009, it was completed or was under construction.

433 thousand housing units are under construction, of which only 43 thousand were built in the 17-year period from 1984 to 2001 [Building Turkey's Future..., 2009, p. 9].

There is a Protocol between the Social Support and Solidarity Fund and TOKI on the construction of social housing, on the basis of which the Administration carries out construction on a paid basis for persons entitled to support the Fund. The goal of the protocol is to provide basic housing needs for poor and needy citizens, providing them with decent living conditions. We are talking about providing them with two-room apartments (1 + 1) with a total area of 45 sq. m. The total cost of the Social Housing project - 500 million Turkish liras-is financed by the Social Support and Solidarity Fund. Among the recipients of social housing, there is a mandatory 10% contingent of disabled people. Obtaining housing is not conditional on an initial payment, provision of collateral or guarantee of a third party. Payment is made for 20 years, the recipient of housing, even if the full amount of the cost is paid for 10 years, does not have the right to transfer the living space to another person or rent it out. For the period from 2003 to the beginning of 2011, the number of recipients of social housing amounted to 139 thousand people [Gelecegin 2010-2011, s. 22].

However, the potential size of the grateful electorate is obviously higher than this figure, since the TOKI activity itself, as it is clear from the above, is not limited to social housing for the Social Support and Solidarity Fund. A larger group of its clients are individuals with a certain, albeit low, level of income, defined as medium or low, who cannot purchase housing on market conditions. Depending on their specific level of wealth, they pay 10 to 40% of the cost of housing as a down payment, while the remaining amount is repaid in a period of 84 to 240 months. At the same time, the real interest rate on a housing loan remains zero. The amount of debt is only adjusted in accordance with the level of inflation, which is measured by the level of indexation of wages of workers in state-owned enterprises. Thus, it is assumed that the share of payments for purchased housing in household income remains unchanged. The TOKI report reported 195 thousand people who received housing by 2011, from the number of people with middle and low incomes [Gelecegin..., 2010-2011, s. 22].

Municipalities are another important channel for distributing social assistance. They were the first institutions, some of which, as a result of local government elections, ended up in the hands of pro-Islamic parties, through which the leaders of political Islam were able to declare their social policy in the form of various types of material assistance to those in need (food, fuel, clothing, etc.) several years before the AKP became the ruling party by party. "In almost all municipalities of the AKP (emphasis added - N.Y.), there are departments for working with people in need, where you can apply for help in obtaining food, fuel, clothing, a place in a shelter," state Turkish researchers G. Bakyrezer and Yu. Demirer [Bakirezer and Demirer, 2009, p. 175]. "Municipal social assistance can be used and, apparently, is really used in political interests to increase the chances of the ruling party for re-election. This is at least a widespread belief among those who were interviewed by us in several districts of Istanbul in the course of our study, " Turkish researchers A. Bugra and Ch. Keyder [Bugra and Keyder, 2005, p. 33].

It should be added that the author's field research, however, is rather limited, allowed us to note that at the same time" unreliable " municipalities, i.e. those where

representatives of opposition parties predominate, and they are harshly and unceremoniously harassed by the central authorities, including financially.

So, the social policy of the AKP, of course, is very active, which indicates a rather high intensity of redistributive processes in the economy. However, this in itself can indicate both the populist nature of the state and the movement towards the creation of a social state.

To a certain extent, the selective, rather than universal, nature of a significant amount of state social policy allows us to assume that the populist principle still prevails. Indeed, as already noted, the appeal of the Social Protection and Solidarity Support Fund as a social policy tool for the ruling party lies primarily in the fact that it can provide assistance to specific (but not everyone) voters with their special needs, using an individual approach and thereby establishing effective contact between the needy electorate and the authorities with a positive outcome for the first, and in the longer term - for the second. According to the Turkish researcher D. Yildirim, the AKP, forming the character of power in accordance with the interests of social groups associated with it, used all the tools of populism as much as possible. During the AKP government period from 2003 to 2008, a total of 42 million 663 thousand people benefited from one or another type of support through the Social Support and Solidarity Fund. a person or at least every second citizen of the country, obviously representing the less well-off and less well-off half of the country's population, that is, the main electorate of the AKP [Yildirim, 2009, s. 97-99]. At the same time, the parallel course of the processes of strengthening (or at least maintaining a high level) support for the AKP from election to election and the growth in the number of recipients of social assistance is quite obvious. Moreover, even the shares of those who received aid (half of the population) and those who vote for the AKP (approximately half of the votes) are the same. "Understanding the origins of this significant increase in monetary and material aid coming from the state is connected with the realization that the expansion of support for the AKP to related social groups is based on aspiration... to establish a link between populist messages and political plans, " concludes D. Yildirim [Yildirim, 2009, p. 99-100].

Sharing the view that the state's social policy is focused on the disadvantaged and needy, Turkish authors A. H. Kose and S. Bahce write: "The AKP, having abandoned the general principle of protecting the individual, turned to charity. In other words, by making a choice not in favor of building a welfare state, but by creating a system of well-known social guarantees, it replaced social justice with charity, which is also very selective (emphasis added-N. U.In this sense, the AKP is leading a new system of charity, consisting of structures close to it and extraordinary mechanisms of state redistribution" [Kose and Bahce, 2009, p. 496.]. The authors argue their position, in particular, by the fact that in parallel with the growth of payments through the Social Support and Solidarity Fund The volume of reallocation through other channels, which have a broader social focus than the Fund's marginalized clientele, decreased (see chart). This circumstance, in their opinion, convincingly proves the "substitution of the social state by the state of selective charity" [Kose and Bahce, 2009, p. 507].

Chart

Dynamics of payments under the Social Support and Solidarity Fund and other channels of redistribution of generated income

Source: [Kose and Bahce, 2009, p. 496].

Turkish analyst S. Ozel also insists that the AKP is a typical populist party, arguing that through a series of populist (and popular) measures, it takes care of the losers in the process of global integration. "Virtually universal health care, free distribution of basic necessities such as flour, coal, and sugar, free textbooks for school children, and affordable housing all ensure the AKP's popularity among the least prosperous segments of Turkish society..." writes Ozel (2011). Thus, it also directly links the party's populism with its social policy and the latter's stratification selectivity.

But even being included in the list of aid recipients on the basis of low social or property status does not fully contradict the idea of a social market economy. For example, its Mediterranean model is characterized by the fact that "social policy is mainly addressed to socially vulnerable categories of citizens and is not comprehensive" (Nesterenko, 1998, p. 77). Apparently, the expansion of the circle of its recipients in the last decade, given the relative limited economic opportunities of these countries, has caused the deep financial problems they have been experiencing since 2011. Consequently, such an economic policy certainly has a populist character. At the same time, it should be recognized that with a rather limited understanding of the object of social policy, the very concept of a social market economy is blurred. Therefore, even if there is an element of subjectivity in the distribution of social assistance, the choice of the main object - the poorest part of the population - is obvious and logical, and also allows you to control social spending.

But even in this case, it is alarming, first of all, that such a choice, even if justified, of the main object of the government's redistributive policy is carried out not so much against the background of the general growth of welfare and strengthening the stability of the national economy, but against the background of the very ignoring of risks that is associated with shifting the investment process

the burden on the country's private sector. We are talking about the complacency of the state, which, having saved itself, but not the national economy as a whole, from risks, actively engaged in the social problems of the most loyal electorate. In other words, it is not obvious that the national economy can really afford such a large amount of social spending. Secondly, the use of economic criteria for providing assistance is supplemented by political ones (emphasis added).The overall rather high probability of belonging to the AKP electorate of marginal strata in need, usually with a low educational level and therefore largely adhering to the traditional Muslim way of life, is additionally verified through the political preferences of voters in the territory of this municipality: the poor are actively supported only in those municipal territories whose voters preferred the AKP candidates. In this sense, it is more correct to speak not about attempts to create a social market economy, but about modifying the economic populism that has taken root in the country, if only because, contrary to the former's attitudes towards social partnership and the search for a compromise between social groups that are objectively predisposed to confrontation, the political selectivity of social assistance rather serves to further polarize society, depending members of the current government.

Third, from this point of view, the subjective preferences of the authorities in favor of such a form of social policy as various types of assistance as opposed to the social insurance system really attract attention, whereas usually social assistance is intended only to eliminate shortcomings in the functioning of the insurance system. According to Turkish researchers, the importance of social assistance prevails in the understanding of social policy among the AKP and the governments formed by it [Fisek, 2007, p. 21]. For example, in such an official document as the 2006 Pre-Election Program, it was noted that "the poor part of society is supported to a greater extent through the system of social assistance and support, rather than social insurance" [Republic of Turkey..., 2006, p. 98]. Although the increase in the coverage of the health insurance system partially changes this balance, the structural features of social policy that still remain suggest that the authorities are interested in preserving the element of politicized selectivity and the possibility of establishing "special relations" within the framework of social policy in their own interests. At the same time, the unprecedented growth in the scale of social assistance, apparently to the detriment of other areas of social policy, really turned this assistance from a tool for neutralizing the poor into a tool for increasing their support, and, accordingly, into a factor for increasing the irritation of those who find themselves outside the "chosen" circle of recipients.

Fourth, the authorities ' preferences in using forms of social policy seem to have not only a political but also an economic background. The very poor who are recipients of social assistance are represented, in terms of their status in the labor market, mainly as unemployed and employed in the shadow sector, which explains their stay outside the social insurance system. According to the Turkish authors G. Bykyrezer and Yu. Demirera, by helping them through the social assistance system, but without taking measures that are really necessary to solve the problem of shadow employment, such as measures to expand the activities of trade unions, the AKP ensures the status quo, thereby supporting national capital in its quest for economic growth at the expense of the continuing cheapness of labor. Indeed, from 2002 to 2008, the dynamics of the real cost of labor in the private sector remained negative for four out of seven years, and in the years when its dynamics were positive, the maximum growth was 4.5% [Ekonomik Rapor 2010, 2011, s. 125]. Further, the same authors rightly point out the futility of such a path for Turkey with uche-

that includes competitors such as China and India, as well as Turkey's expectation of stopping population growth in the future. In these circumstances, the future of the country should certainly be linked to the growth of the quality indicators of the labor force, which would correspond to the course for joining the EU [Bakirezer and Demirer, 2009, p. 175]. Only in this way would it be possible to confirm the status of Turkey as a country whose economy is driven by efficiency, and not by factors of production [see: From redistribution..., 2011, pp. 14-17]. From this point of view, the structural features of the social policy of the AKP again turn out to be the same policy that, carried away by redistributive processes, ignores economic risks, i.e. corresponds to the definition of a populist policy.

Thus, during the AKP era, economic policy did not lose its populist character, but, firstly, it was possible to partially reduce its macroeconomic costs by including social expenditures that are important for the struggle for the electorate in a more balanced budget due to a decrease in state investment activity, and secondly, it was possible to increase the political effectiveness of populism by giving it a targeted character and Third, the very nature of populism has changed, becoming one of the components of the AKP's characteristic elusiveness of party identity, thanks, among other things, to an increase in the balance of public finances and a decrease in inflation. Just as there is a debate over whether the AKP is playing on the side of Islamization or Europeanization, authoritarianism or democracy, the essence of its social policy can also be debated as populist or legitimately aimed at supporting the poorest strata of society. But the author hopes that his position in this discussion is clear.

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