Emerging market bank rescues in an era of finance-led neoliberalism: A comparison of Mexico and Turkey

The international community and many financial experts have singled out the positive elements of how strong institutional reforms following Mexico's 1995 and Turkey's 2001 banking crisis have shielded their banking sectors today from the wider economic impact of the world financial crisis. By contrast, this article argues from a historical materialist analytical approach that the 1995 and 2001 bank rescues and reforms preserved, renewed, and intensified the structurally unequal social relations of power and class characteristic of finance-led neoliberal capitalism in forms institutionally specific to Mexican and Turkish society. The post-crisis reforms reinforced the dominance of banking and finance capital in Mexico and Turkey at the expense of popular classes and society in general, and it is this dynamic of power that explains the resilience of banks today.