RESUMEN
This paper examines state-business alliances within the context of market transitions in two developing countries, Mexico and Turkey, between 1980 and 2000. Asserting that state-business alliances are fragile formations and should be analyzed as processes, the paper focuses on the sustainability of such alliances and questions why they are sustained in some cases, but not in others. Exploring domestic institutions and their role in market transitions, the paper establishes analytical links between certain institutional variables and alliance outcomes. It argues that these institutional variables, such as business’s incorporation into policy-making through consultative mechanisms, can explain the sustainability of state-business alliances in market transitions. Suggesting that incorporation can only be maintained through cohesive actors, the paper examines cohesiveness vs. fragmentation at both state and societal levels along with the impact of market transitions on state-society relations. The paper is a comparative endeavor using two cases, Mexico and Turkey, both of which went through dramatic market reforms. It examines these two cases with respect to state-business alliances between 1980 and 2000, conceptualizing business as big industry.