Paper short abstract:

This paper is an ethnographic attempt to investigate the policymaking process in a developing country, Turkey, with a focus on the interaction of human and non-human actors. Specifically, it examines the blurry line drawn between the political and the technical.

Paper long abstract:

This research examines the policymaking process of the Turkish tobacco regulatory board, which was established under the promises made to the IMF in 2002. Drawing from the studies of Bruno Latour, it explores the functioning of the regulatory board by focusing on a particular case, i.e. the controversy of the hard-box cigarette packing machines bought for the Turkish tobacco monopoly. The machines' status (whether they were new or used) opened a heated debate among different actors, such as regulatory board, the Ministry of Finance and multinational cigarette companies. The contenders of the dispute invoked several technical reports: the pictures of the machines were taken, the expertise accounts were written, and the different data were circulated but the goal of exposing the "facts" was not achieved. The evidence in the reports and pictures of the machines remained ambiguous, and the machines became the hub of technical as well as political debates.

In the end, the lingering dispute about the machines was concluded by the regulatory board with a final decision that was shaped in a process of speculation, interpellation, and expectation. Therefore, in opposition to the idea that policies are being formulated in a structure of rational and well thought-out ideas, I argue that the regulatory agency has developed an improvised version of policymaking hinging upon expectations and speculations. In other words, technocratic policies are formed in an environment of massive uncertainty and ambiguity, rather than coherent, stable, and straightforward systems of global policy and/or national governance.