Globalization versus the nation state has emerged as one of the central areas of controversy and debate in the field of international political economy in the context of the 1990s. The pace of technological change, the speeding up of communications and the extent of international economic integration have brought into question the effectiveness of many traditional national economic instruments. A number of investigators point towards the erosion of economic sovereignty and question the nation state as the main building block of governance. It is undoubtedly the case that the nation state is under pressure; yet it is also the case that the process of globalization is much more in evidence in some areas than others. Whilst we observe significant increases in the volume of trade and foreign direct investment over the past decade, the process of globalization has arguably proceeded further than anywhere else in the sphere of financial capital. Computerization, advanced telecommunications, and associated pressures for financial deregulation have resulted in a major increase in both the scale and mobility of financial capital across national boundaries. Capital is now so mobile that markets will ensure that holders of financial assets receive broadly the same risk adjusted real return anywhere. Any country that offers significantly lower returns will experience capital outflows and a rapidly depreciating exchange rate. It is now virtually impossible for countries to return to exchange controls as an instrument of economic regulation.

An otherwise unremarkable author, L.P. Hartley deserves credit for his astute observation that the past is a foreign country where they do things differently. The qualitative difference of the past from the present has intrigued many a methodologically-concerned social scientist such as Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Karl Polanyi. As a matter of fact, the reservation that the categories by way of which we approach the analysis of the modern world are by no means equally applicable to the study of pre-modern historical formations is as old as the modern social sciences. If the past is a foreign country the boundaries of which are well defined and the territory of which has been mapped for good, the future remains as the terra incognita waiting for its Columbus, the courageous discoverer. Moreover, because the relevant geography of the future is not a given but only in the making, the task of the social scientist becomes squarely difficult as s/he does not face before her/him a well defined terrain. It is for this reason that, on the whole, social scientists have shied away from exploring the future in a systematic way until recently.

Liberalization programs are aimed at the removal of the restrictions placed upon the working of the market mechanism. These restrictions may be broadly classified under two categories. The first category of restrictions is aimed at the control of domestic markets, particularly financial markets. The underlying idea behind liberalization programs is that the removal of such restrictions will have a positive impact on the efficiency of domestic markets. The second group of restrictions are of an indirect nature and are aimed at the protection of the domestic economy from the effects of developments in international markets. Liberalization programs advocate the removal of the restrictions that prevent the integration of these markets. The removal of these restrictions is expected to increase competition, and enhance efficiency in resource allocation.

Much of the recent debate on the labor market issues of developing countries has revolved around the interaction of the labor market with stabilization and structural adjustment policies, introduced mostly in conjunction with the IMF and the World Bank. In particular, there is a growing body of literature on the interaction between structural adjustment policies and employment performance in these countries.

According to the dominant view in this literature, the favorable employment effects of these policies stem basically from the shift of industrial trade strategy from state-led import substitution towards market-based export orientation.

The first labor code of the Turkish Republic was enacted in 1936 and became effective in 1937. The most significant feature of this code was the time taken by the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA) to legislate it. Negotiations began in 1925 with discussions of the Service Code draft bill. In the course of fifteen years TGNA discussed five draft bills and in 1936 a final draft was accepted. Between then and 1950, when the Republican People's Party (RPP) lost the election to the Democrat Party (DP), the scope of the labor code was extended without any alteration in its ideological content.