Turkey’s ports: growth coalitions and infrastructural connectivity

This article examines Chinese port investments in Turkey through the lens of state–capital relations in transnational infrastructure development. Analysing Chinese-invested Kumport, Singaporean-invested Mersin, and stalled Çandarlı, we interrogate how the Belt and Road Initiative intersects with Turkey's fragmented institutional landscape. Using a growth coalition framework and original elite interviews, we show that Chinese investment strategies are shaped not only by geoeconomic logics but also by political informality, regulatory volatility and absent industrial policy. The paper contributes to debates on the geographies of Chinese capital, variegated state capitalism and infrastructure governance under geopolitical competition.