Abstract This article investigates the position of hazelnut cultivation in Turkey within the global hazelnut value chain. Conceptually, it seeks to bring together the insights of the scholarship on global agrifood value chains and studies on seasonal migrant agricultural labor. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork that included interviews with farmers, wholesalers, and seasonal migrant farm workers in three provinces along the Black Sea coast and an analysis of secondary literature, it argues that being part of a global value chain has not brought positive social outcomes in terms of income and working conditions, and that hazelnut farming itself is maintained largely thanks to the availability of seasonal migrant farm workers. Despite international development agencies’ expectations of social upgrading – higher wages and incomes – in agrifood value chains, the case of hazelnuts in Turkey points to social downgrading for both farmers and farm laborers.
This article examines how the Turkish government used executive decree-laws (Kanun H & uuml;km & uuml;nde Kararnameler; KHKs) during the 2016-2018 state of emergency declared in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016. While existing literature often treats executive aggrandizement as a symptom of democratic backsliding, this study focuses on how it was institutionally implemented through legal instruments. Drawing on qualitative content analysis of thirty-seven KHKs, thirty-two emergency and five ordinary, the article shows how these decrees enabled the government to bypass legislative and judicial oversight, marginalize rivals, and restructure key state institutions. The analysis is guided by three interrelated theoretical lenses: populism; competitive authoritarianism; and neo-patrimonialism. Rather than responding solely to security threats, the KHKs functioned as tools of regime change, allowing the executive to consolidate power through formal legal means. The article contributes to the study of autocratization by demonstrating how legal mechanisms under emergency rule can be used to entrench autocratic governance. It offers a typology of decree-law functions in Turkey's post-coup period and highlights the role of executive lawmaking in the long-term reordering of state authority.
