Compared to many of her counterparts, which adopted very similar developmentalist models during their Import Substituting Industrialization periods, and started the privatization adventure at similar development levels, Turkey’s two decade experience with privatization was extraordinarily protracted. Only by the turn of the century did the course of Turkey’s exceptionally delayed privatization begin to change, following severe economic and political crises. Against this background, the paper revisits the debate regarding the place and role of the state in economy and society, in a distinctive historical juncture when the shift from a state-directed economic model to a liberalized market-economy disrupts, dissolves and recasts existing relationships between social groups and the state at various stages of economic transformation in Turkey since the 1980s. In this respect, the paper demonstrates three definitive moments in Turkey in regards to the course of instituting economic liberalism and accomplishing successful privatizations: First, the anti-privatization discourse in Turkey was empowered by a strong nationalist ideology which defined an encompassing and passionate state-building, nation-making and bourgeoisie-creating project under strong state tutelage since the inception of the Republic. As such, opposition to privatization was never a simple counter-positioning to a new economic strategy that has been put in effect since the early 1980s, but a recent reincarnation of a deeper ideological position in defense of a statist outlook informed by defensive nationalism. Second, the changing trajectory of privatization after 2000 towards an astonishing level was not solely a consequence of favorable domestic and international economic conditions, but rather was a symptom of the increasing penetration of the neoliberal ideology which weakened statist discourses and the national development outlook in Turkey. It was at an historical juncture when this ideology found recipients among those political elite who for various reasons had long been in conflict with the existing configuration of the state and the interpretation of statism, and implemented the requirements of the new economic order more enthusiastically and successfully than previous political groups. Finally, despite what can be described as a miraculous achievement in privatization attempts in recent years, marginalized oppositional groups could still distort the outcomes of the process, by ensuring that most privatizations resulted with the victory of the national capital against international investors. In that sense, the long historical legacy of the ideological struggle colored with strong nationalist sentiments continued to empower oppositional groups in their effort to resist economic and social transformation in Turkey.