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Cilt 11 Sayı 23 Kış 2018
ISSN 1307-9778
E-ISSN 1309-5137
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Cilt: 11 • Sayı: 23 • Kış 2018
ISSN 1307-9778 E-ISSN 1309-5137
Gazi Akademik Bakış Yılda İki Defa Yayımlanır
SAHİBİ
Prof. Dr. Hale ŞIVGIN
EDİTÖRLER
Prof. Dr. Hale ŞIVGIN
Prof. Dr. Mehmet Seyfettin EROL
Prof. Dr. Mustafa ALKAN
EDİTÖR YARDIMCILARI
Prof. Dr. Nejla GÜNAY
Doç. Dr. Murat ÖNSOY
SORUMLU YAZI İŞLERİ MÜDÜRÜ
Dr. Ahmet ELİBOL
YAZI KURULU
Ferdi GÖKBUĞA
Mehmet Fatih BAŞ
Gökhan YURTOĞLU
HABERLEŞME
Müge AKINBİNGÖL
YAYIN KURULU
Prof. Dr. Tayyar Arı • Uludağ Üni.
Prof. Dr. İbrahim S. Canbolat • Uludağ Üni.
Prof. Dr. Haydar Çakmak • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üni.
Prof. Dr. İlhami Durmuş • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üni.
Prof. Dr. Edward Foster • Stevens Teknoloji Enstitüsü
Prof. Dr. Fuat Keyman • Sabancı Üni.
Prof. Dr. Derviş Kılınçkaya• Hacettepe Üni.
Prof. Dr. Hasan Köni • Kültür Üni.
Prof. Dr. Çağatay Özdemir • Gazi Üni.
Prof. Dr. Hasan Bülent Paksoy • Texas Tech. Üni.
Prof. Dr. Hale Şıvgın • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üni.
Prof. Dr. Hülya K.Çengel • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üni.
Prof. Dr. Nuri Yavuz • Artvin Çoruh Üni.
Prof. Dr. Mehmet Seyfettin Erol • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üni.
Prof. Dr. Mustafa Eravcı • Yıldırım Beyazıt Üni.
Prof. Dr. Mustafa Sıtkı Bilgin • Yıldırım Beyazıt Üni.
Prof. Dr. Mustafa Alkan • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üni.
Doç. Dr. Aleksandr Sotniçeno • St. Petersburg Devlet Üni
DANIŞMA KURULU
Prof. Dr. Ramazan Acun • Hacettepe Üni.
Prof. Dr. Gülden Ayman • İstanbul Üni.
Prof. Dr. Cemalettin Taşkıran • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üni.
Prof. Dr. Hikmet Öksüz • Karadeniz Teknik Üni.
Prof. Dr. Ahmet Güneş • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üni.
Prof. Dr. A.Hikmet Eroğlu • Ankara Üni.
Prof. Dr. Cengiz Hakov • Bulgaristan Bilimler Akademisi
Prof. Dr. Şükrü Hanioğlu • Princeton Üni.
Prof. Dr. Necdet Hayta • Gazi Üni.
Prof. Dr. Kemal H. Karpat • Wisconsin Üni.
Prof. Dr. Gökhan Koçer • Karadeniz Teknik Üni.
Prof. Dr. Jacop Landau • Kudüs İbrani Üni.-Emekli
Prof. Dr. Yakup Mahmutov • Azerbaycan Milli İlimler
Akademisi
Prof. Dr. Ali Akar • Muğla Üni.
Prof. Dr. Ziya Öniş • Koç Üni.
Prof. Dr. Neşe Özden • Ankara Üni.
Prof. Dr. Maria Pia Pedani • Venedik Ca’ Foscari Üni.
Prof. Dr. Yusuf Sarınay • TOBB ETÜ
Prof. Dr. Zafer Toprak • Boğaziçi Üni.
Prof. Dr. İbrahim Yılmazçelik • Fırat Üni.
Prof. Dr. Dimitri Vasilyev • Rusya Bilimler Akademisi
Doç. Dr. Krassimira Mutafova • Veliko Tırnova Üni.
Prof.. Dr. Ceenbek Alımbayev • Kırgızistan-Türkiye Manas
Uni.
Prof. Dr. Uğur Ünal • Devlet Arş. Gnl. Md.
Prof. Dr. Ertan Gökmen • Celal Bayar Üni.
Dr. Öğr. Üyesi A. Fahimi Aydın • İnönü Üni.
Doç. Dr. Elnur Agayev • Lefke Avrupa Üni.
Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Emre Ozan
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YAYIN TARİHİ
10 Aralık 2018
Gazi
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CORRESPONDANCE - COMMUNICATION
Journal of Gazi Academic View
Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University. Faculty of Arts, Department of History
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PERIODICAL TYPE
International Peer Reviewed Local Periodical Journal
PUBLISHING DATE
10 Aralık 2018
Volume: 11 • Number: 23 • Winter 2018
ISSN 1307-9778 E-ISSN 1309-5137
Gazi Academic View is Published Twice a Year
OWNER
Prof. Hale ŞIVGIN
EDITORS
Prof. Hale ŞIVGIN
Prof. Mehmet Seyfettin EROL
Prof. Mustafa ALKAN
ASSISTANT EDITORS
Prof. Nejla GÜNAY
Assoc. Prof. Murat ÖNSOY
DESK EDITOR
Dr. Ahmet ELİBOL
PUBLICATION BOARD
Ferdi GÖKBUĞA
M.Fatih BAŞ
Gökhan YURTOĞLU
COMMUNICATION
Müge AKINBİNGÖL
EDITORIAL BOARD
Prof. Tayyar Arı • Uludağ Uni.
Prof. İbrahim S. Canbolat • Uludağ Uni.
Prof. Haydar Çakmak • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Uni.
Prof. İlhami Durmuş • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Uni.
Prof. Edward Foster • Stevens Institute of Technology
Prof. Fuat Keyman • Sabancı Uni.
Prof. Derviş Kılınçkaya • Hacettepe Uni.
Prof. Hasan Köni • Kültür Uni.
Prof. Çağatay Özdemir • Gazi Uni.
Prof. Hasan Bülent Paksoy • Texas Tech. Uni.
Prof. Hale Şıvgın • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Uni.
Prof. Nuri Yavuz • Artvin Çoruh Uni.
Prof. Hülya K. Çengel • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Uni.
Prof. Mehmet Seyfettin Erol • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Uni.
Prof. Mustafa Eravcı • Yıldırım Beyazıt Uni.
Prof. Mustafa Sıtkı Bilgin • Yıldırım Beyazıt Uni.
Prof. Mustafa Alkan • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Uni.
Assoc. Prof. Aleksandr Sotniçeno • St. Petersburg State Uni.
ADVISORY BOARD
Prof. Ramazan Acun • Hacettepe Uni.
Prof. Cemalettin Taşkıran • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Uni.
Prof. Gülden Ayman • İstanbul Uni.
Prof. Hikmet Öksüz • Karadeniz Teknik Uni.
Prof. Ahmet Güneş • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Uni.
Prof. A.Hikmet Eroğlu • Ankara Uni.
Prof. Cengiz Hakov • Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Prof. Şükrü Hanioğlu • Princeton Uni.
Prof. Necdet Hayta • Gazi Uni.
Prof. Kemal H. Karpat • Wisconsin Uni.
Prof. Gökhan Koçer • Karadeniz Technical Uni.
Prof. Jacop Landau • The Hebrew Uni. of Jarusalem /
Emeritus
Prof. Yakup Mahmutov • Azerbaijan National Academy of
Sciences
Prof. Ali Akar • Muğla Uni.
Prof. Ziya Öniş • Koç Uni.
Prof. Neşe Özden • Ankara Uni.
Prof. Maria Pia Pedani • Venetian Ca’Foscari Uni.
Prof. Yusuf Sarınay • TOBB ETÜ
Prof. Zafer Toprak • Boğaziçi Uni.
Prof. İbrahim Yılmazçelik • Fırat Uni.
Prof. Dimitri Vasilyev • Russian Academy of Science
Prof. Uğur Ünal • Director of General State
Prof. Ertan Gökmen • Celal Bayar Uni.
Assoc. Prof. Krassimira Mutafova • Veliko Turnova Uni.
Prof. Ceenbek Alımbayev • Kyrgyz-Türkiye Manas Uni.
Assist. Prof. A. Fahimi Aydın • İnönü Uni
Assoc. Prof. Elnur Agayev • European University of Lefke
Assoc. Prof. Emre Ozan
Gazi
ACADEMIC VIEW
YURTDIŞI TEMSİLCİLERİ
Almanya
Prof. Dr. Barbara Kellner Heinkele • Berlin Freie
Üniversitesi
Amerika Birleşik Devletleri
Prof. Dr. M. Hakan Yavuz • Utah Üniversitesi
Azerbaycan
Doç. Dr. Tofig Nacafli • A.A. Bakıhanov Azerbaycan
Milli İlimler Akademisi
Bulgaristan
Doç. Dr. İbrahim Yalımof • Sofya İslam Enstitüsü
İsrail
Prof. Dr. Jacob Landau • Kudüs İbrani
Üniversitesi-Emekli
İtalya
Dr. Vera Costantini • Venedik Ca’ Foscari Üni.
KKTC
Doç. Dr. Elnur Ağayev • Lefke Avrupa Üniversitesi
Kırgizistan
Prof. Dr. Dööletbek Saparaliyev • Kırgizistan-
Turkiye Manas Üniversitesi
Rusya
Doç. Dr. Aleksander Vasilyev • Rusya Bilimler
Akademisi
Suriye
Prof. Dr. Mehmet Yuva • Şam Üniversitesi
Makedonya
Prof. Dr. Numan Aruç • Makedonya Bilimler ve Sanatlar
Akademisi
REPRESENTATIVES ABROAD
Germany
Prof. Barbara Kellner Heinkele • Berlin Freie Uni.
United States of America
Prof. M. Hakan Yavuz • The University of Utah
Azerbaijan
Assoc. Prof. Tofig Nacafli • A.A. Bakıhanov Azerbai-
jan National Academy of Sciences
Bulgaria
Assoc. Prof. İbrahim Yalımof • Institute of Higher Is
lamic Studies
Israel
Prof. Jacob Landau • The Hebrew University of Jeru
salem, Emeritus
Italy
Dr. Vera Costantini • Venetian Ca’ Foscari Uni.
Cyprus
Doç. Dr. Elnur Ağayev • European University of Lefke
Kyrgyzstan
Prof. Dööletbek Saparaliyev • Kyrgyzstan-
Turkey Manas University
Russia
Assoc. Prof. Aleksander Vasilyev • Russian Aca-
demy of Sciences Oriental Institute
Syria
Prof. Mehmet Yuva • Damascus University
Macedonia
Prof. Numan Aruç • Macedonian Academy of
Sciences & Arts
BU SAYININ HAKEMLERİ / REFEREES OF THIS ISSUE
Dergiye gönderilen yazı ve fotoğraflar iade edilmez.
Bu dergide yayınlanan yazılardaki fikirler yazarlarına aittir
The articles and photos that has been sent to the journal for publication may not be returned even if they are
not published.
The responsibility of all the ideas in the articles published in this journal belogns to their authors.
Prof.Dr. Mehmet Demirtaş • Bitlis Eren Üni.
Prof. Dr. Yusuf Sarınay • TOBB Ekonomi ve Teknoloji Üni.
Prof. Dr. Temuçin Faik Ertan • Ankara Üni.
Prof. Dr. Serdar Sağlam • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üni.
Prof. Dr. Ömer Demirel • Sivas Cumhuriyet Üni.
Prof. Dr. Necdet Hayta • Gazi Üni.
Prof. Dr. Mustafa Alkan • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üni.
Prof. Dr. Mehmet Dikkaya • Kırıkkale Üni.
Prof. Dr. İbrahim Yılmazçelik • Fırat Üni.
Prof. Dr. İbrahim Ethem Atnur • Erzurum Atatürk Üni.
Prof. Dr. Haydar Çakmak • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üni.
Prof. Dr. Hale Şıvgın • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üni.
Prof. Dr. Ertan Gökmen • Manisa Celal Bayar Üni.
Prof. Dr. Bilal Karabulut • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üni.
Prof. Dr. Ahmet Güneş • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üni.
Doç. Dr. Muharrem Ekşi • Kırklareli Üni.
Doç. Dr. Mikail Acıpınar • İzmir Katip Çelebi Üni.
Doç. Dr. Levent Düzcü • Bolu İzzet Baysal Üni.
Doç. Dr. Kürşad Zorlu • Ahi Evran Üni.
Doç. Dr. Itır Özer İmer • Ankara Hâcettepe Üni
Doç. Dr. Erdal Aksoy • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üni.
Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Nasrullah Uzman • Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üni.
Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Emre Ozan • Kırklareli Üni.
TARANAN INDEXLER VE VERİ TABANLARI
INDEXES & DATABASES
Gazi Akademik Bakış Dergisi ESCI, EBSCO, CEEOL, DOAJ, INDEX
COPERNICUS, INDEX ISLAMICUS, TÜBİTAK-ULAKBİM, IMB, ASOS,
PROQUEST, MLA INTERNATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY, SERIALS SOLUTIONS
ve TÜBİTAK DERGİ PARK tarafindan taranmaktadır.
Gazi Akademic View indexed by ESCI, EBSCO, CEEOL, DOAJ, INDEX
COPERNICUS, INDEX ISLAMICUS TUBITAK-ULAKBIM, IMB, ASOS,
PROQUEST, MLA INTERNATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY, SERIALS SOLUTIONS
and TUBITAK DERGI PARK.
Central and
Eastern European
Online Library
Provider of
EBSCOhost®
Emerging Sources Citation Index
WEB OF SIENCETM
İçindekiler
Editorial
Türk Yumuşak Güç ve Kamu Diplomasisinin Yükseliş ve Düşüşü
Muharrem Ekşi - Mehmet Seyfettin Erol ...............................................................................................15
Tahran Deklarasyonu ve Sonrası: Türkiye-Brezilya Küresel Ortaklığının Yükselişi ve
Gerileyişi
Segâh Tekin .................................................................................................................................................................47
TÜSİAD ve MÜSİAD’ın AK Parti Dönemi Kamu Diplomasisi Faaliyetleri
Derya Büyüktanır .....................................................................................................................................................73
Osmanlı Devleti’nde Hudûdnâmelerin Kaynak Değeri Üzerine Bir Araştırma
Mustafa Alkan ............................................................................................................................................................99
“Padişahım Çok Yaşa!” Sosyal ve Siyasî Yönleriyle II. Abdülhamid İçin Yapılan Doğum
Günü Kutlamaları
Said Olgun ..................................................................................................................................................................111
Bir Buharlı Güzergâhını Aydınlatmak: Kıbrıs Deniz Fenerleri ve Kıbrıs’ta Buharlılar
(1850-1878)
Mesut Karakulak - Halim Kılıç ...................................................................................................................139
Osmanlı İdaresinde Kıbrıs’ta Kasap Esnafı ve Faaliyetleri
Ali Efdal Özkul .........................................................................................................................................................163
KKTC’de Ekonomik Büyüme ve Sektörel Gelişimin Büyümeye Etkileri
Demet Beton Kalmaz - Nuru Giritli .........................................................................................................199
27 Mayıs’ın “Zoraki Diplomatları”: 14’lerin Yurtdışı Faaliyetleri
Ferit Salim Sanlı ....................................................................................................................................................221
Suriyeli Sığınmacıların Konteyner Kamplarına İlişkin Bir Araştırma
Derya Bakbak ..........................................................................................................................................................249
Bir Sosyal Kurum Olarak Üniversite, Bilim Zihniyeti ve Türkiye
Fahri Atasoy ...............................................................................................................................................................289
Amerikan Belgeleri Işığı Altında Cumhuriyetin İlk Yıllarında Türkiye’de Eğitim
Hikmet Öksüz - Ülkü Köksal ........................................................................................................................317
Gazi Akademik Bakış Dergisi Yayın İlkeleri .............................................................................................352
Contents
Editorial
The Rise and Fall of Turkish Soft Power and Public Diplomacy
Muharrem Ekşi - Mehmet Seyfettin Erol ...............................................................................................15
Tehran Declaration and beyond: The Rise and Decline of Turkish-Brazilian Global
Partnership
Segâh Tekin .................................................................................................................................................................47
Public Diplomacy Activities of TÜSİAD and MÜSİAD During the AK Party Era
Derya Büyüktanır .....................................................................................................................................................73
A Research on the Resource Value of the Hududnâmes in The Ottoman State
Mustafa Alkan ............................................................................................................................................................99
“Long Live the Sultan!”
Social and Political Aspects of Birthday Celebrations for Abdulhamid II
Said Olgun ..................................................................................................................................................................111
Illuminate a Steamship Route: Steamships in Cyprus and Lighthouses of Cyprus
(1850-1878)
Mesut Karakulak - Halim Kılıç ...................................................................................................................139
Butchers And Activities in Cyprus in the Ottoman Rule
Ali Efdal Özkul .........................................................................................................................................................163
Economic Growth in TRNC and Impact of Sectoral Development on Economic Growth
Demet Beton Kalmaz - Nuru Giritli .........................................................................................................199
“Compelled Diplomats” of May 27 Coup D’etat: Foreign Activities of the “Fourteens”
Ferit Salim Sanlı ....................................................................................................................................................221
A Search into the Container Camps of Syrian Refugees
Derya Bakbak ..........................................................................................................................................................249
The University as a Social Institution, Science Mentality and Turkey
Fahri Atasoy ...............................................................................................................................................................289
Education in Turkey in the Early Republican Years According to the American Official
Documents
Hikmet Öksüz - Ülkü Köksal ........................................................................................................................317
Guideline of the Journal of Gazi Academic View ................................................................................352
Akademik
Bakış
Cilt 11
Sayı 23
Kış 2018
15
Makale Geliş Tarihi: 16.06.2018, Makale Kabul Tarihi: 29.09.2018
* Assoc. Prof., International Relations, Kırklareli University, e-mail: eksimuharrem@gmail.com
** Prof. Dr., International Relations, Gazi University, e-mail: mserol@gmail.com
The Rise and Fall Of Turkish Soft Power and Public
Diplomacy
Türk Yumuşak Güç ve Kamu Diplomasisinin Yükseliş
ve Düşüşü
Muharrem EKŞİ* - Mehmet Seyfettin EROL**
Abstract
This article explores Turkey’s public diplomacy and soft power policies under the government of the Justice
and Development Party (JDP) over the period of 2003 to 2016. Thus, Turkish foreign policy is analysed
within the framework of soft power policy and the new institutional design of the country’s public diplomacy.
The main research questions of the study are as follows: “What are Turkey’s public diplomacy mechanisms
and instruments, and furthermore, why did Turkey begin to implement public diplomacy under the JDP
governments? Additionally, how does Turkey implement soft power policies in line with the new foreign
policy doctrine?” The study has two fundamental arguments: First, the JDP leaders’ ambition to become
a regional power and the leader of the Middle East and Muslim world has played the chief role in pushing
forward with public diplomacy and soft power policies. Secondly, the new vision and identity of the ruling
party leaders have been effective in the transformation process for a shift towards soft power and public
diplomacy in new foreign policy doctrine within a modern understanding. In this context, the JDP rule initi-
ated public diplomacy and soft power policies until the Arab Spring, which era could characterize the rise of
Turkish soft power. However, Turkish soft power began to fall particularly in the wake of the Syrian crisis.
Keywords: Public Diplomacy, Soft Power, AK Party, Turkish Foreign Policy, Middle East.
Öz
Bu makale 2003-2016 yılları arasındaki AK Parti döneminde uygulanan Türkiye’nin kamu diplomasisi ve
yumuşak güç politikalarını analiz etmektedir. Bu bağlamda araştırmada yumuşak güç kavramı ve kamu
diplomasisinin yeni kurumsal mekanizmaları çerçevesinde Türk dış politikasının analiz edilmesi yöntemi uy-
gulanmıştır. Bu çalışma için şu temel araştırma soruları belirlenmiştir: Türkiye’nin kamu diplomasisi meka-
nizmaları ve araçları nelerdir?, Neden Türkiye, AK Parti döneminde kamu diplomasisi politikası uygulama
gereğini duymuştur?, ayrıca Türkiye, yumuşak güç politikasını nasıl yeni dış politika doktrini düzleminde
uygulamıştır? Bu çerçevede iki temel argüman geliştirilmiştir: Birincisi, kamu diplomasisi ve yumuşak güç
politikalarının uygulanmasını sağlayan motivasyon, AK Parti liderlerinin Müslüman Ortadoğu’da bölgesel
güç ve İslam dünyasının lideri olma ideali olmuştur. İkincisi, AK Parti liderlerinin yeni vizyon ve kimliği,
kamu diplomasisi ve yumuşak güç temelli dış politika doktrinini dönüştürmüştür. Arap Baharı sürecine
kadar AK Parti hükümetleri, kamu diplomasisi ve yumuşak güç politikalarını uygulamıştır. Ancak Suriye
krizi, Türkiye’nin komşularla sıfır sorun, serbest ticaret bölgesi inşa etme gibi yumuşak güç politikalarının
sonunu getirmiştir. Bundan sonra hükümetin sert güç politikalarını uygulamaya geçmesiyle birlikte Türk dış
politikasında 2003 ile 2011 arası yükselişte olan yumuşak gücün düşüşü başlamıştır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Kamu Diplomasisi, Yumuşak Güç, AK Parti, Türk Dış Politikası, Ortadoğu.
Akademik
Bakış
Cilt 11
Sayı 23
Kış 2018
16
Muharrem EKŞİ-Mehmet Seyfettin EROL
Introduction to the New Turkish Foreign Policy within the Framework of
Soft Power and Public Diplomacy
The Justice and Development Party (JDP) government began to implement di-
plomacy within the framework of the diversification of Turkish foreign policy
and also initiated soft power policy in order to enhance Turkey’s influence in
the Balkans, Caucasia, Central Asia, Africa, and in the Middle East. Further-
more, the JDP leaders’ desire to become a regional power and the leader of
the Middle East and Muslim world played the main role in adopting public di-
plomacy and soft power policies1. Thus, Turkish foreign policy has been diver-
sified both in cultural, historical and societal components and instruments-
mechanisms by public diplomacy. Nevertheless, Turkey reached its limit of its
power, capacity and instruments in turn due to Syrian crisis.
This study analyses the implementation of soft power and public diplo-
macy within Turkish foreign policy under the JDP rule during the 2000s in the
reforming the mentality and institutional framework of the country. The main
research question of the study is as follows: “Why did Turkey shift towards soft
power and implementation of public diplomacy for the first time in 2000s in the
JDP era?” The fundamental argument of this question is: The new vision and
identity of the ruling party leaders have been effective in the transformation pro-
cess for a shift towards soft power and public diplomacy in foreign policy within
a modern understanding. The JDP cadres, taking their roots from Islamist tradi-
tion, aimed for leadership of the Muslim world by using their own Islamic cul-
ture and New Turkey’s identity2. Consequently, the JDP leaders’ design required
building New Turkey and a new identity and the best way to do this was using
soft power and public diplomacy to promote it in the world New Turkey identity
was branded as Muslim conservative democracy with nation-branding method-
ology under the leadership of the JDP and was launched all over the world ac-
cordingly3. Under the authority of the JDP government, the Muslim conservative
identity would be soft power used in the Islamic world to a greater extent and
particularly it would focus on the Middle East. The JDP government aimed to
achieve this strategic objective via public diplomacy, thereby launching Turkey’s
new identity in Muslim societies, gaining their sympathy and having them think
the JDP’s model as a reachable vision for their own country. For this reason,
public diplomacy and soft power in Turkish foreign policy was introduced during
2000s decade for the first time with the JDP government4. The JDP regime mainly
brandished soft power and public diplomacy in the Middle East’s politics.
1 Traub, J., “Turkey rules”, New York Times, 01.03.2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/
magazine/23davutoglu-t.html?_r=0.
2 Semih İdiz, “Will Islamic world accept Turkey’s leadership?”, Al Monitor, 2016,
3 Yalçın Akdoğan, AK parti ve Muhafazakar Demokrasi, İstanbul: Alfa Yayınları, 2004.
4 Muharrem Ekşi, The Rise and Fall of soft Power in Turkish Foreign Policy: The rise and fall of the ‘Turkish
Model’ in the Muslim World, Saarbrücken: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2016, s. 26.
Akademik
Bakış
Cilt 11
Sayı 23
Kış 2018
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The Rise and Fall Of Turkish Soft Power and Public Diplomacy
The second eminent research question is why Turkey’s soft power has
been predominantly directed to the Middle East. In response to this question,
three arguments are suggested. First, Turkey set its core foreign policy in the
Middle East during the JDP era. This was because the Middle East is within
Turkey’s geography surroundings and at the same time it was experiencing the
most crucial shift in its history. For that reason, Turkey could not stay away
from all the critical transformations that were occurring in the Middle East. As
a result, Turkey had to deal with the region to a great extent. Because; with the
U.S. occupation of Iraq in 2003 Turkey became a neighbour of a superpower.
Another reason for the JDP to put the Middle East as a focus of foreign policy
was the party’s Islamic identity. The JDP’s Islamic identity leads it to be con-
nected to the Middle East. In addition to this, the ruling leaders made use of
Islamic identity, public diplomacy and other programs to deepen the ties with
the Middle Eastern countries. The JDP government conducted identity-based
public diplomacy to gain sympathy from Muslim societies by highlighting
their Islamic ties and identity in general discourse. Third, model partnership
policy developed with the U.S. was an effective way for Turkey to implement
soft power policy centring on the Middle East5. Accordingly, Turkey was to be
viewed as a model country when it came to Muslim Middle Eastern countries
by highlighting its traits: being a conservative Muslim democracy, a neoliberal
and capitalist developing economy, and at the same time being both a NATO
member and a member-candidate country for the EU. In this context, the U.S.
implemented a supportive policy with Turkey by opening a space in Middle
East until ‘Arab Spring’. The JDP government tried to realize their goal of being
a model country for the region by practicing public diplomacy with the soft
power image. Within this context, Turkey introduced a model country-based
public diplomacy towards the Middle East under the JDP rule6.
The JDP government initially claimed that it would follow a foreign pol-
icy, which was diverged from those of the previous governments and did so by
producing new conceptions7. The concept of central country was the leading
one of these conceptions. With this nation-branding, the ruling government
tried to position Turkey in the international system and claimed that Turkey
was a naturally central country due to its historical, cultural and geographical
position. On the other hand, Ahmet Davutoğlu, the former Minister of Foreign
Affairs, argued that Turkey should adopt a multidimensional foreign policy
strategy instead of a unilateral foreign policy as employed by the previous
5 Kadir Ustun and Kılıç Buğra Kanat, “US- Turkey relations: Arab Spring and the search for mo-
del partnership”, SETA DC Perspective, http://file.setav.org/Files/Pdf/20130515122804_seta_
dc_perspective_ustun_kanat_us_turkey.pdf. 2012, s. 2.
6 Muharrem Ekşi, “AK Parti döneminde Ortadoğu’da Türk-Amerikan ilişkilerinin Jeokültürel
Ekseni: İslami kimlik. Gazi Akademik Bakış, 9 (18), 59-77, 2016, s. 73.
7 Ahmet Davutoglu, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy vision: An assessment of 2007. Insight Turkey, 10(1), 77-96.
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governments8. In this context, Turkey implemented a global and multifacet-
ed foreign policy simultaneously in Latin America, Africa, Middle East and
China9. This made Turkey a global actor instead of having a unilateral policy
that locked it in the West only. Therefore, it started to increase the number of
foreign missions and doubled their number from 2002, when it took power, to
201210. In addition, Turkey chose to conduct a proactive and rhythmic diplo-
macy in foreign policy, based on hosting international conferences and having
a voice in the global policy-making platforms.
The ruling party began to materialize paradigmatic transformations in
the traditional Turkish foreign policy. First, it radically abandoned the Middle
East approach of the previous governments of not intervening in the quag-
mire of the Middle East and developed the Middle Eastern-oriented policy of
zero-problem with neighbours. In this framework, the government discovered
its policy of first solving the existing problems with the neighbouring Mid-
dle Eastern countries and then providing the commercial and political inte-
gration11. The neighbouring countries responded positively to this approach
by Turkey while mutual exchange of visits increased and bilateral free trade
agreements started to be concluded. Subsequently, the political relations im-
proved and a bilateral strategic high-level cooperation mechanism was built12.
Therefore, Turkey’s relations with its neighbours, particularly with those in the
Middle East, began to remarkably improve and develop at a level never before
seen in the history of modern Turkey. The global and regional foreign policy
strategies of the JDP government that were very attractive and successful were
based primarily upon its soft power policy strategy, which it developed on the
basis of its Islamic identity.
The Ruling Party’s Vision of Public Diplomacy and Soft Power:
Identity-Based Soft Power and Public Diplomacy: Islamic Identity
The new vision and identity of the JDP leaders ruling the country in the 2000s
was effective while Turkey shifted for the first time to the soft power and public
diplomacy in foreign policy in a modern and institutional manner. The identity
of the JDP that originates from the National Outlook tradition (Milli Görüş),
which is an Islamist movement, is one of the most significant characteristics
8 A.g.m. s. 82
9 Mehmet Seyfettin Erol, “11 Eylül sonrası Türk Dış Politikasında vizyon arayışları ve Dört
Tarz-ı Siyaset”, Gazi Akademik Bakış, 1(1), 33-55, s. 52.
10 KDK, “13 yılda 65 yeni temsilcilik: Türkiye’nin yurtdışındaki temsilcilik sayısı 228’e çıktı”,
KDK, 2015, http://kdk.gov.tr/sayilarla/13-yilda-65-yeni-temsilcilik-turkiyenin-yurtdisindaki-
temsilcilik-sayisi-228e-cikti/41.
11 Bülent Aras, “Davutoğlu era in Turkish Foreign Policy”, SETA Policy Brief, 32, , s. 9.
12 MFA, “Turkey- GCC high level strategic dialogue meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs to
be held in İstanbul”, T.C. Dışişleri Bakanlığı, 2012, http://www.mfa.gov.tr/turkey-gcc-high-level-
strategic-dialogue-meeting-of-ministers-of-foreign-affairs-to-be-held-in-istanbul.en.mfa.
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The Rise and Fall Of Turkish Soft Power and Public Diplomacy
of the ruling party that distinguishes it from the previous parties with strict
secular identity. Yet, the JDP leaders also transformed the National Outlook
tradition. It could be even argued that JDP transformed Islam and Islamist
movements from radical to moderate in line with the U.S.’ Greater Middle East
Initiative and Moderate Islam policy in Turkey. In this sense, the Islamist iden-
tity of JDP can be defined as a global, neo-liberal and moderate Islam. With its
Islamist identity, the government managed to become a model for the Muslim
world, while it integrated Islam in globalization on one hand and Muslim bour-
geois under the umbrella of MUSİAD (Independent Industrialists’ and Busi-
nessmen’ Association) into capitalism on the other13. Beyond that, coming to
power as the majority party with Islamist traditions for the first time both in
Turkey and the Muslim world provided the party with a privileged position at a
global level. This was decisive for the JDP leaders’ vision to be a model for the
Muslim countries.
Therefore, the ruling party harmonized its Muslim identity with de-
mocracy within the framework of “conservative democrats” and wanted to in-
troduce it to the world that it represented a model of what an Islamic move-
ment might accomplish through democratic processes. As suggested by Bilgin
Ayata, the JDP government offered an Islamic governance model to the Muslim
societies14. It could be argued that the JDP leaders reference was the Christian
Democratic Party model in Europe when they adopted a strategy of marketing
to the whole world, particularly to the Muslim Middle East, the JDP modelled
that Islam and democracy could be harmonized15. In addition, the government
gave preference to employ its model for the Middle East in the form of soft
power, as it would otherwise have negative response. It opted to wield soft
power discourse since the model concept would cause a perception of he-
gemony and imperial tendency of Turkey in the Middle East. Notwithstanding,
the employment of soft power for embedding model in Middle East became a
strategic concept that allowed Turkey to be recognized positively by the coun-
tries and communities of the region. At the same time, the government built
a vision of implementing and embedding these countries model in foreign
policy based upon its soft power due to its Muslim democracy identity. For this
purpose, the ruling party built an image of its Muslim identity first by nation-
branding method through public diplomacy. Then, the JDP leaders realized a
cultural transformation was necessary in foreign policy within the framework
of moderate Islam and started to pay attention to use of populist discourse
13 Özlem Tür, “Economic relations with the Middle East under the AKP—Trade, business com-
munity and reintegration with neighboring zones”, Turkish Studies, 12(4), 2011, 589-602, s. 591
14 Bilgin Ayata, “Turkish Foreign Policy in a changing Arab World: Rise and fall of a regional
actor?”, Journal of European Integration, 37, 95-112, s. 95.
15 William Hale, “Christian Democracy and the AKP: Parallels and contrasts”, Turkish Studies,
6(2), 2005, 293-a310, s. 293.
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with a weighted Islamic tone towards the Muslim Middle East in order to ad-
dress such feelings. They actually intended to win the hearts and minds of the
Muslim people of the Middle East. Likewise, another indicator of the iden-
tity transformation of the government is the relation with the Muslim world.
The JDP leaders developed a policy of relations within the Muslim world for
the first time in Turkish foreign policy16. In this context, a critical reason why
the Middle East gained significance in the ruling party’s foreign policy is the
proximity of the JDP’s leading figures to the Muslim communities in terms of
their values, identity and culture. It was aimed with this policy to make sure
that Turkey first expands to the markets of the Muslim world and then tries to
become the leader of the Muslim world eventually.
In this context, the Muslim identity became the most important ele-
ment in determining and feeding the vision of the foreign policy of the JDP.
Likewise, the ruling government first needed public diplomacy to implement
this identity-based policy. Therefore, the government followed the policy of
soft power in order to win hearts and mind of the Muslim communities by
means of public diplomacy in foreign policy. In this sense, public diplomacy
happened to be a strategic instrument for the soft power policies of the JDP
government.
Soft Power Policies
Policy of Zero-Problem with Neighbours
The zero-problem policy that inherently intends to lower the security problems
reflects the perspective of the JDP government towards the Middle East and
the change of mindset. Instead of the traditional standpoint of the former gov-
ernments that was security-based and which avoided intervention in the re-
gion that it regarded to be a quagmire, the government preferred the problem-
solving based strategy and de-securitization policy17. It adopted the approach
of first overcoming the problems and then developing the commercial and
political relations18. Therefore, the government first changed the rhetoric of
Turkey’s image in its traditional Middle East approach and later replaced the
rigid and security-based approach with soft power and trade-oriented policy
through its zero-problem policy. In this framework, the government followed
an economic expansion policy by signing free trade agreements with the Mid-
dle Eastern countries19. Thus, it made a paradigmatic transformation in the
traditional Turkish foreign policy. Likewise, concepts within the Middle East
16 Nuri Yesilyurt ve Atay Akdevelioglu, “AKP döneminde Türkiye’nin Ortadoğu Politikası, AKP Ki-
tabı: Bir Dönüşümün Bilançosu, Uzgel, İlhan ve Duru, Bülent (ed.), Ankara: Phoenix, 2009, s. 387.
17 Bülent Sarper Ağır, “Non-traditional security issues of the Western Balkans: Actors, causes
and implications”, Turkish Yearbook of International Relations, 45, 2014, 65-91, s.91.
18 Meliha Benli Altunışık, “Turkish foreign Policy in the 21st Century”, , 2011, s. 195.
19 Özlem Tür, “Economic relations with the Middle East under the AKP—Trade, business com-
munity and reintegration with neighboring zones”, Turkish Studies, 12(4), 2011, 589-602, s. 594.
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The Rise and Fall Of Turkish Soft Power and Public Diplomacy
policy of Turkey like threat, military, power and security were replaced with
liberal ones like cooperation, integration, development, partnership and win-
win strategy. This rhetoric change was not limited to only new discourses or
concepts but transformed the policy by assuming the roles of mediator and fa-
cilitator. Hence, the government took on the role of peacekeeper in the “peace”
talks between Syria and Israel, in the Palestine and Israel conflict, between
Hamas and Fatah, in the nuclear program of Iran, and in the political crisis in
Lebanon20.
The zero-problem policy manifested itself particularly the relations
between Turkey and Syria, which soon resulted in honeymoon-like relations
between the two countries. As emphasized by Baskın Oran, the Turkey-Syria
relations were always based upon hard power due to the historical problems
of the Hatay province, the Euphrates River and the Tigris River21. For instance,
the two countries were on the verge of a war in 1998 due to the fact that Syria
hosted terror organization PKK and its leaders who were responsible for ter-
ror attacks in Turkey. But the relations improved after the Adana Protocol of
Understanding signed in October 1998. The government utilized this proto-
col to pursue a policy of overcoming the problems with Syria and improving
their relations. Therefore, the JDP leaders proceeded to describe the two socie-
ties as brothers in order to show the change in the relationship between the
two countries. Further, Turkey launched peacekeeping initiatives as of 2003
to repair the Syria-Israel relations. Turkey also assumed peacekeeping in the
Syria-Iraq dispute in 2009. The relationship between the two countries was
expeditiously recovering and then it increased even more between 2003 and
2010 that this period was referred in the literature as a honeymoon and golden
times22. The basic indicators of the development of the relations between the
two countries can be listed as mutual frequent visits, bilateral agreements, in-
creasing trade volume and joint vacations of the leaders of the two countries.
However, after the Arab Spring spread to Syria, the relationship between the
two countries quickly began to deteriorate; Turkey left soft power and returned
to hard power strategy in its Syrian policy. The Syrian crisis that emerged with
the Arab Spring did not only ruin the Turkey-Syria relations but also terminat-
ed the soft power-based foreign policy of the government towards its southern
neighbour in the Middle East.
20 Aylin Gürzel, “Turkey’s role as a regional and global player and its power capacity: Turkey’s
engagement with other emerging states”, Rev. Sociol. Polit, 22(50), 2014, 95-105, s. 101.
21 Baskın Oran (der.), Türk Dış politikası: Kurtuluş savaşından bugüne olgular, belgeler, yorumlar, İstan-
bul: İletişim Yayınları. 2013, s. 156.
22 Sami Moubayed, “Turkish-Syrian relations: The Erdoğan legacy”, SETA DC Policy Brief, 2008, http://
setadc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/SETA_Policy_Brief_No_25_Sami_Moubayed.pdf , s.1.
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Armenian Initiative as Normalization Diplomacy
Turkey recognized the independence of Armenia in 1991 together with the oth-
er former USSR countries, but did not establish diplomatic relations due to the
invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh and so-called genocide accusations. Until the
JDP rule, the Armenia policy of Turkey was based on the termination of Arme-
nian occupation on the soil of Nagorno-Karabakh of Azerbaijan and abandon-
ing the so-called ‘genocide allegations’. The government left the policy with
Azerbaijan and so-called genocide in 2009 and initiated unilateral normaliza-
tion of relations with Armenia. The normalization process began with sports
diplomacy when the then President Abdullah Gül went to a football match on
6th September 200823. Later a secret negotiation process was conducted and
a bilateral understanding was reached in Switzerland in April 2009. Turkey and
Armenia signed the protocols on the 10th of October 2009, with great jubila-
tion as applause was seen from the ministers of foreign affairs of the EU,the
USA, Russia and Switzerland.
These protocols instituted the normalization of relations between the
two countries24. Accordingly, the first protocol would establish diplomatic re-
lations between the two countries and the second would open a common bor-
der. Other protocols would set up joint commissions as an attempt to solve
the problems between the two countries. It was intended to solve the so-called
‘genocide’ declaration and criminalizing it in senates and parliaments through
the history commission in particular. However, the normalization process
failed because both countries followed conventional diplomacy methods in-
stead of public diplomacy. Both countries needed to obtain the consent of
their public opinion by explaining to them the normalization process. Turkey
needed to use public diplomacy for this normalization process in order to
make people understand why they were doing this, even with the Azerbaijan
problem still existing, in order to get support for this new policy.
One of the most important reasons behind the blockage of the nor-
malization process might be the solution method of the Minister of Foreign
Affairs Davutoğlu, who tried to use the same pragmatic approach for a his-
torically chronic issue between Turkey and Syria when dealing with the Ar-
menian normalization. However, the Turkey-Armenia relations and issues are
hinged upon a long history and, therefore, on historical perceptions. For that
reason, it was necessary to eliminate these historical prejudices and negative
stereotypes and to develop dialogue policies to ensure convergence between
the societies. This would only be conceivable by long-term public diplomacy
23 Ömer Engin Lütem, “Türkiye-Ermenistan ilişkilerinin güncel durumu”. Yeni Türkiye, 60, 2014,
1-91, s. 14.
24 MFA, Protocol on development of relations between The Republic of Turkey and The Repub-
lic of Armenia. http://www.mfa.gov.tr/site_media/html/zurih-protokolleri-tr.pdf.
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The Rise and Fall Of Turkish Soft Power and Public Diplomacy
methods. In this context, normalization diplomacy with Armenia should be ad-
dressed within the framework of public diplomacy. Ignoring the public diplo-
macy dimension of the normalization resulted in the blockage of the process
and in the degradation of the relationship with Azerbaijan. Therefore, civilian
initiatives should have been implemented, and the hostile and negative per-
ceptions of societies towards each other needed to be transformed within the
framework of public diplomacy between two communities that have had his-
torical biases. In general, it could be argued that essentially psychological and
historical obstacles blocked the ability to overcome the problems between the
two countries and communities. This is largely due to the fact that both socie-
ties and countries are stuck in 1915. The way to overcome this is to highlight
the fact that the history between the two communities does not consist only of
1915 and they have had a long history of living together in peace. In this sense,
the history between the two communities and countries should be rebuilt in
line with experience of peaceful coexistence in the Ottoman period.
Another problematic dimension of the normalization relations is the
attitude of the Armenian diaspora. The Armenian diaspora did not only ques-
tion the normalization of the relations of these two countries but also caused a
great setback as they offended the international image of Turkey by urging leg-
islations to be passed stating Turkey had committed the so-called “genocide”
in the countries they live in. A long-term policy particularly including lobby
activities among the public diplomacy methods should be developed instead
of the ad-hoc system of all governments.
Model Country-Based Public Diplomacy: Model Country Policy toward the
Middle East
The focus and centre of the Turkish foreign policy in 2000s was the Middle
East. This was affected by the internal and external dynamics. External factors
include the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the U.S. and the emergence of colossal
transformations in the Middle East, while the main internal factor was the fact
that a party from an Islamist tradition came to power in Turkey. The will of the
JDP to follow a policy based upon the Muslim world by making a virtue of its
Islamic identity formed the most significant domestic dynamic of Turkey’s ten-
dency towards the Middle East in 2000s. In addition, Turkey became a strategic
ally of the U.S. in the Middle East because of its’ moderate Islam policy in this
period. This led to the Middle East-oriented model partnership policy between
Turkey and the USA25.
Within this framework, the U.S. followed policies to support Turkey
in the Middle East and opened space for Turkey in the region until the Arab
Spring. On the other hand, Turkey started to use a discourse with a dominant
25 Jim Zanotti, Turkey: Background and U.S. relations, Congressional Research Service, June 6, 2018, , s.6.
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Islamic tone to open space for itself in the Middle East26. This aimed to win the
sympathy of the Muslim peoples of the Middle East. Populist discourse policy
was actually employed in order to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim
societies of the Middle East. In addition, the JDP leaders used their Muslim
identity to develop their relations with the Muslim countries of the Middle
East27. In addition to that, a policy was utilized to criticise Israel to win the
support of the Muslim societies28. Thus, Turkey followed the strategy of get-
ting closer to the Muslim countries and peoples of the Middle East over Israel.
The JDP leaders went further and further in order to become the leaders of the
Palestine issue29.
On the other hand, Turkey tried to implement its model country policy
via the soft power concept in the Middle East by using its Muslim democrat
identity of the JDP rule. In other words, the soft power policy of Turkey in the
Middle East included its existence as a model country. The JDP leaders pre-
ferred to use the soft power discourse in the Middle East policy, since the
model country discourse would receive a negative welcome by the countries
and people of the Middle East. Turkey did not only use soft power as a dis-
course but also followed soft power policy with other actions. Within this
framework, Turkey concluded visa exemption agreements as well as free trade
agreements (FTA) with the Middle East countries to foster its relations. In this
context, FTAs were signed with Tunisia and Palestine in 2005, Morocco (2006)
with Syria and Egypt in 2007 and with Jordan in 201130. In addition, the ruling
governments employed the strategy of increasing soft power through trade
in the Middle East and established business councils within the countries of
the region. In this context, business councils were established in Lebanon in
2002, Saudi Arabia in 2003, Bahrain in 2005; Qatar, Kuwait, Oman in 2006,
Libya and Israel in 200731. The trade volume of Turkey with the Arab countries
increased during the JDP governments by 8 fold from 8 billion USD to 64.2
billion USD through the FTA and business councils32. Likewise, the Gulf Co-
26 Seymen Atasoy, “The Turkish example: A model for change in the Middle East?. Middle East Policy, .
27 Muharrem Ekşi, The Rise and Fall of soft Power in Turkish Foreign Policy: The rise and fall of the ‘Turkish
Model’ in the Muslim World, Saarbrücken: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2016, s. 59.
28 Karol Kujawa, “Turkey and democratization in the Arab World: Between an inspiration and a
model”, PISM Policy Paper, 2011, https://www.pism.pl/files/?id_plik=8151.
29 Jpost, “Hamas: Erdogan’s victory is a victory for Palestine”, Jerusalem Post, 2015, http://www.
jpost.com/Middle-East/Hamas-leadership-congratulates-Turkeys-Erdogan-431796.
30 Ekonomi Bakanlığı, Serbest ticaret anlaşmalarına ilişkin genel bilgi, 2014, T. C. Eko-
nomi Bakanlığı, http://www.ekonomi.gov.tr/portal/content/conn/UCM/path/Contributi-
on%20Folders/web/D%C4%B1%C5%9F%20%C4%B0li%C5%9Fkiler/Serbest%20Ticaret%20
Anla%C5%9Fmalar%C4%B1/ekler/sta%20tablo.pdf?lve.
31 DEİK, Deik iş konseylerinde yeni dönem başliyor”, DEİK, 2016, https://www.deik.org.tr/6352/
DE%C4%B0K_%C4%B0%C5%9E_KONSEYLER%C4%B0NDE_YEN%C4%B0_D%C3%96NEM_
BA%C5%9ELIYOR.html.
32 TRTHaber, “Türkiye, insani yardımda lider ülke”, TRT Haber, 2016, http://www.trthaber.com/
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operation Council recognized Turkey as a strategic partner in 2008. After these
developments, Turkey established high-level strategic cooperation councils
with the Middle East countries to implement its policy to establish a kind
of joint cabinet of ministers with the countries of the region33. Furthermore,
Turkey introduced mediation initiatives in its Middle East policy. As such, Tur-
key developed a mediation initiative on the basis of sovereignty and control
of the Golan Heights between Syria and Israel. Moreover, Turkey proceeded
to mediation between Israel and Hamas while playing a role of facilitator for
the integration of Hamas into the politics of region and for consensus with Al
Fatah. Particularly its achievement of solving the problem of Israeli Soldier
Gilad Shalit held hostage by Hamas, the Economist magazine detailed the me-
diation initiatives of Turkey particularly President Erdogan as a success story
under the headline of “the Great Mediator”34.
In addition, the government implemented a public diplomacy based
upon model country. Specifically, Turkey implemented a policy of building
its Muslim democracy consisting in a free market economy, Western alliance,
NATO membership and EU accession process, and soft power in the Middle
East. Within the framework of public diplomacy policy rested on attraction
through the story of the country and thus distinguishing as a soft power; Tur-
key followed a strategy to explain its model country peculiarities to the Middle
Eastern countries and societies. In fact, the model country rhetoric is hinged
upon the story of the JDP, not Turkey35. The JDP’s story is based first on its
transformation from its original Islamist movement to a moderate direction
and then on to the transformation of Turkey and its foreign policy36. With re-
gard to political Islam that is the fundamental phenomenon of the Middle East
politics, the soft power of the JDP in the Middle East was based first on the
transformation of political Islam in Turkey and then on the transformation of
the Islamic movements in the region and the Muslim countries. In this con-
text, the Western countries supported Turkey, particularly the U.S., as a model
country for the Middle East37. Turkey followed the model country policy using
its soft power rhetoric. In this sense, the Middle East policy of Turkey during
m/?news=darbe-yapacagimizi-abdye-bildirdik&news_id=212433&category_id=1.
33 KDK, “Yüksek Düzeyli İşbirliği Mekanizmaları”, Kamu diplomasisi Koordinatörlüğü, 2016, http://
kdk.gov.tr/haber/yuksek-duzeyli-isbirligi-mekanizmalari/452.
34 Economist, “The great mediator”, The Economist, 2010, http://www.economist.com/
node/16847136.
35 Nil Gülsüm, “AK Parti modeli dünya için şans”, Yeni Şafak, 2015, http://www.yenisafak.com/
hayat/ak-parti-modeli-dunya-icin-sans-2143267.
36 Bilal Sambur, “The great transformation of political Islam in Turkey: The case of justice and
development party and Erdogan”, European Journal of Economic and Political Studies, 2(2), 2009,
117-127. s. 119.
37 T. P. Carrol, “Turkey’s justice and development party: A model for democratic Islam?. The
Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, 2004, https://www.meforum.org/meib/articles/0407_t1.htm.
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the JDP governments can be conceptualized as a model country-based public
diplomacy. It is remarkable that such an intervention towards the Middle East
policy of Turkey reflects a radical transformation. Hence, until the JDP rule,
Turkey’s Middle East policy was determined to be non-interventionary in the
problems of the region. Former governments considered the Middle East as a
quagmire and chose to keep away from it38. The proactive policies of the ruling
government in the Middle East reflect a radical disengagement from the previ-
ous governments, as well as a shift in the central paradigm.
However, the model country-based Middle East policy of Turkey failed
because of the Syria crisis and the Arab Spring that began in 2011. This rested
upon the fact that the overlapping interest of the U.S and Turkey in the Middle
East politics disintegrated after the Arab Spring process. Likewise Turkey was
left alone in the Syria crisis, while Syria used to represent the pilot country
of the JDP model country policy39. On the other hand, it is suggested that the
policy of the JDP leaders to turn away their support towards the U.S. and the
West which was limited only to the model country, towards its leadership in
the Middle East and even in the Muslim world caused the loss of the support
of the U.S. and the West as well as the collapse of its Middle East policy. Like-
wise in the process of Arab Spring and Syria crisis, Turkey left its soft power
policy that it had been implemented between 2003 and 2011 and shifted to
the hard power policy. In other words, the Syrian crisis brought the soft power
policy of Turkey to an end.
The Initiative of Alliance of Civilizations: Global Public Diplomacy Project
The JDP leaders did not keep the model country rhetoric limited within the
Middle East but also tried to utilize it for the leadership of the Muslim world.
The Initiative of Alliance of Civilizations, known also as UNAOC, started in
2005 under the auspices of the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, President
Erdogan, and the Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. It was
used by the JDP government as a global public diplomacy opportunity to try
and to become the speaker of the Muslim World. The historic context of the ini-
tiative was based upon the discussions of “clash of civilizations” which became
a keystone in the agenda of the international public opinion during 1990s. The
clash of civilizations argument was brought about to the international public
by the article of Huntington and it was depended upon the assumption that
the essential dynamics of the post-Cold War conflict would be the conflicts
between cultures and religions as a new threat40. Huntington established his
argument mainly on the conflict between the West and Islam rather than all
38 Ahmet Davutoğlu, Davutoğlu: Ortadoğu’ya bataklık dedirtmeyeceğiz”, Yeni Şafak, 2014, .
39 İbrahim Natil, “Turkey’s Foreign policy challenges in the Syrian crisis”, Irish Studies in Interna-
tional Affairs, 27, 2016, 1-10, s. 2.
40 Samuel P. Huntington, “The clash of civilizations”, Foreign Affairs, 27(3), 1993, ss. 22-49.
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other civilizations. As a result of the escalating controversy and concerns on
clash of civilizations, in 1998 UN General Assembly declared the year 2000 as
the “Year of Dialogue between Civilizations” upon the proposal of the Iran’s
President Khatami41. However, the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on September
11, 2001 were named by the Bush Administration as “Islamic Terror” and he
started a war against the “Islamic” terror that caused the perception that the
prophecy of clash of civilizations was starting to come true42. After the terrorist
attack in Madrid in 2004, the Initiative for the Alliance of Civilization (IAC) was
started in 2005. Thus, the IAC emerged as the antithesis of the terror attacks
and clash of civilizations.
The leading goals and objectives of the initiative were to determine the
solution to centuries long polarization of Islam-Christianity/East-West and
the historic environment of mutual prejudice, doubt, fear and disengagement
between the Muslim and Western societies by reconciling them. Within the
framework of this initiative, Turkey planned projects like Islam and Human
Rights Conferences, organized events to fight against Islamophobia and other
violations of human rights and freedoms, education seminars for Alliance of
Civilization, special seminars and training courses for the religion officials to
be appointed in foreign countries, the Great Anatolia Meeting of the world
cultures and youth – workshop of alliance of civilization, workshop for the role
of media in preservation and conveyance of cultural heritage and in ensuring
the intercultural dialogue, European Youth travels Turkey43. As seen here, the
ruling government tried to reflect the model country image of Turkey to the
global public by investing greatly in the initiative.
Thus the government followed the policy of building its new identity by
focusing on the theme that Turkey was historically the cradle of different civi-
lizations with its multicultural Ottoman heritage. In this context, the govern-
ment presented its Muslim democratic identity as a model both to the West
and the Muslim World. In addition, JDP leaders wanted to play the role of an
actor who can solve the intercultural problems by using mediation based upon
its historic background. It could be argued that IAC opened space for Turkey’s
mediator role between the Islam and Christianity conflicts based on its inter-
national image, model country role and its legitimacy provided44. IAC as a pub-
41 The UN, “Assembly Proclaims 2001 United Nations year of dialogue among Civilizations,
expressing determination to facilitate international discussion”, The United Nations, 1998,
http://www.un.org/press/en/1998/19981104.ga9497.html.
42 Jefrey Haynes, “Twenty years after Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilisations”, 2013, http://www.e-ir.
info/2013/02/10/twenty-years-after-huntingtons-clash-of-civilisations/.
43 T.C. MİG, “Türkiye Cumhuriyeti medeniyetler ittifakı ulusal plan 2008-2009”, T.C. Dışişleri
Bakanlığı, 2008, http://docplayer.biz.tr/2707124-Turkiye-cumhuriyeti-medeniyetler-ittifaki-ul-
usal-plani-turkiye-cumhuriyeti-medeniyetler-ittifaki-ulusal-plani.html.
44 Nurullah Ardıç, “Civilizational discourse, the ‘alliance of civilizations’ and Turkish Foreign
Policy”, Insight Turkey,16(3), 2014, ss.101-122, s. 105.
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lic diplomacy has a positive effect on its identity and image in both Muslim
world and the West. It was also intended that IAC would build the ground for
legitimacy and reliability among Muslim and Western worlds. It is suggested
that the Initiative for the Alliance of Civilizations contributed to the soft power
of Turkey when it was a popular issue in global politics. Hence Turkey included
the Initiative for the Alliance of Civilizations among its foreign policy priori-
ties and regarded it to be very significant with respect to the promotion of the
country in the world and increasing its visibility. On the other hand, the decla-
ration of Margallo, the Spanish Foreign Minister, which reads “I do not really
know what to do with the Alliance of Civilizations” proved that Spain did not
give as much importance to the initiative as Turkey had and made the future
of the alliance uncertain45. The initiative already had very idealistic and utopic
objectives and was seriously disrupted as of 2011 and fell off the agenda of the
international public opinion after 2012.
The Institutional Design of Turkish Public Diplomacy
JDP leaders perceived the importance of public diplomacy in the 21st century
global politics and instituted to build the public diplomacy and soft power of
Turkey for the first time within the framework of the public diplomacy policy
at an institutional level in the second period of their government. In this con-
text, new institutions like Presidency of the Office of Public Diplomacy (KDK),
Yunus Emre Institute (YEI), The Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Com-
munities (YTB) were established and the institutions such as the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) were
reorganized within the context of public diplomacy. As such, these new institu-
tions became the new channel and mechanisms of the Turkish Foreign Policy
(TFP) and diversified it with respect to instruments, actors and methods. Fur-
thermore, social and cultural components were added to the TFP, in addition
the JDP government made the TFP multidimensional.
The Presidency of the Office of Public Diplomacy: The Promotion of New
Turkey
Turkey started to implement the public diplomacy policy very late compared
to the Western countries like the U.S., England, and Germany. Although the
soft power and public diplomacy activities were being performed under the
leadership of TİKA towards the countries of Caucasia and Middle East after
the collapse of the USSR in 1991, it was the JDP government that employed
the public diplomacy as a policy in 2000s. The main reason for implementing
the public diplomacy policy during the JDP government was the desire of the
45 Margallo, “Medeniyetler İttifakı ile ne yapacağımı pek bilmiyorum”, Cumhuriyet, 2012, http://
www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/diger/325538/_Medeniyetler_ittifaki_ile_ne_yapacagimi_
pek_bilmiyorum_.html.
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new government to explain itself to the world with respect to its new ideol-
ogy. The ruling government considered itself to be different from the former
governments that had firm focus on secularism, military and security46. It was a
strategic choice to use public diplomacy policy in order to explain to the world
its moderate Islam model with softened secularism that embedded neoliberal
capitalist economy. Another essential reason of implementing public diplo-
macy policy was the ambition of the JDP leaders to make Turkey a regional
power and global actor. Therefore, the government established, even if it was
late, the Public Diplomacy Coordination Office under the Prime Ministry in
January 2010 and started to implement public diplomacy actively at institu-
tional level as a systematic state policy.
The Prime Ministry Public Diplomacy Coordination Office (KDK) was es-
tablished to provide coordination between the state institutions that perform
soft power activities like Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Culture, YEI,
TİKA and YTB. In addition, KDK drafted and performed public diplomacy pro-
grams directly itself. Units for University Programs, Political Communication
activities, Media and Promotion Works were established to develop public di-
plomacy programs. The University Programs Unit carries out Public Diplomacy
Panels, Foreign Policy Promotion Programs, Foreign Policy Workshops and
Youth programs. The University programs carried out the new Turkish foreign
policy. However, university programs were conducted mainly internally which
caused the perception of propaganda. Youth programs were made to recruit
foreign students and they carried out a successful public diplomacy. Africa and
Middle East were determined to be appropriate areas and the young people
from these regions were the majority in the youth programs.
Political Communication activities included Country Meetings, Wise
People Conferences, Europe Meetings, Panels and International Summit pro-
grams. Political communication activities are implemented at an academic
level that renders them to be elitist. Inclusion of mainly academic people in
communication activities limits the target audience in these kinds of activi-
ties. The Media and Promotion Works units conduct Reporters Delegations
Program, International Press Information, Culture and Promotion activities.
These drew the interest of foreign press in Turkey and ensured first hand and
direct information. Within this framework, KDK was established to implement
public diplomacy policy to influence the international public opinion. In fact,
the primary priority of KDK is, as stated in the established circulation, is to
effectively tell the new story of Turkey47. It was intended to explain the new
identity and Muslim democracy of Turkey particularly with respect to the JDP.
This objective was implemented under the soft power concept towards the
Muslim countries and people of the Middle East. Therefore, Turkey was finally
46 Ömer Taşpınar, “Turkey: The new model?”, The Brookings Institute, 2012, .
47 KDK, “Vision & Mission”, Kamu Diplomasisi Koordinatörlüğü, 2016,
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launched as a soft power country to the communities of the region. In addi-
tion, KDK employed the activity policy in order to defend the rightfulness of
the country before the allegations and problems that it was subjected to. How-
ever, this approach turned the institution into a defensive and denial machine.
Cemalettin Haşimi, the coordinator of the institution, admitted in an interview
by a magazine in 2016 that the office was defensive since its establishment.
On the other hand, the government started to operate public diplomacy ac-
tivities by inaugurating the Yunus Emre Institute, a soft power and cultural
diplomacy-oriented institution equivalent to American Culture Centre, British
Council and Goethe Institute.
Yunus Emre Institute: Cultural Diplomacy
Just like KDK, the Yunus Emre Institute (YEI) was established at a later time
in 2007 compared to its equivalents in other countries such as Alliance Fran-
çaise, the French culture institute was opened in 1883 and British Council was
opened in 1934. Culture institutes are used by countries to conduct cultural
diplomacy by promoting their culture, art and values, also to employ and im-
plement their foreign policy in social and cultural areas as well. In this context,
YEI was established as a supplementary institute to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs to operate as the social and cultural instrument and actor of the Turk-
ish foreign policy regarding the civil society scope. However, due to the lack
of experience in Turkey in the field of cultural diplomacy and lack of sufficient
human resources, the Yunus Emre Foundation that was established in 2007
could only operate as the Yunus Emre Institute by 2009. This was due to the
fact that it was not known what to do with the institution and the cultural
diplomacy. Likewise, YEI could not establish a working strategy since its es-
tablishment. Therefore, YEI opened YEI Turkish Cultural Centres in various
places of the world upon the requests of those countries. Additionally, it was
observed that opening culture centres in the priority areas of the foreign policy
was followed as a principle.
The foundational law of the Institute states the objective of the institu-
tion is “promoting Turkey, its language, history, culture and art, …developing
friendship with other countries, to increase cultural exchange, offering the re-
lated information and documents within and outside the country to the use
of the world, providing people who wish to be trained in Turkish language,
culture and art with services abroad”48. This phrase reflects the cultural diplo-
macy of both the institution and Turkey. On the other hand, the Institute was
configured above daily politics and parties, since it was established as public
foundation and had a state type administration. Within this framework, the
board of the trustees, board of management, audit and consultation councils
48 Yunus Emre vakfi kanunu,
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were included in the administration of the Institute49. In addition, the directors
of the public diplomacy Institutes like KDK, TİKA and YTB and particularly the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs were included in the administration to execute and
coordinated public-culture diplomacy including making the Institute part of
the administration mechanism. As cultural centres were opened by the Insti-
tute in foreign countries, it employed an NGO-like operative principle instead
of as a state-controlled agency. In this aspect, it desired to provide the YEI
Turkish cultural centres with an identity of non-governmental identity. There-
fore, while the initial method was to open the cultural centres in foreign coun-
tries under the framework of embassies, the NGO model was employed as of
201450.
The first centre of the Institute was opened in Bosnia Herzegovina on
17 October 2009 with the name “Sarajevo Yunus Emre Turkish Cultural Centre”
and the institute started to spread in the Balkans. Likewise, the Minister of
Foreign Affairs Davutoğlu said in his speech in the opening of the Sarajevo
cultural centre, which was, the first culture centre, that “it is not a coincidence
that the first centre is opened in Sarajevo. This is a reasoned decision that we
concluded after long thoughts about it” (YEE 2009). We understand that the
first area of expansion for the institute was to be the Balkans. Just after that,
the second centre was opened in Tiran, the capital of Albania, in 11 December
2009. As of 2014 there are 11 Institute centres in the Balkans: Sarajevo, Tiran,
Foynitsa (opening date: 11 October 2011), Mostar, Shkodër (20 October 2012),
Pristina (26 August 2011), İpek (20 March 2012), Skopje (26 March 2010), Bu-
charest (14 November 2011) and Constanta (14 November 2011).
After Sarajevo, the Institute opened its first centre in the Middle East.
Specifically in Cairo, Egypt in 3 March 2010 and has built 7 centres in the Mid-
dle East and Africa as of 2014: Alexandria (27 April 2013), Beirut (23 March
2012), Amman (28 April 2012), Tehran (28 March 2012), Johannesburg (2017),
South Africa (December 2012) and Rabat (March 2013). On the other hand,
the Yunus Emre Turkish Cultural Centre in Damascus, capital of Syria, which
began to operate in 15 December 2010, was closed due to the civil war and
deteriorating relations between the two countries. Six centres were opened in
Eurasia and Far East: Tbilisi (31 May 2012), Baku (2013), Astana (26 May 2010),
Kazan (October 2012) and Tokyo (20 October 2011). Eight centres were opened
in Europe: Brussels (18 October 2010), London (9 November 2010), Budapest
(June 2013), Warsaw (20 June 2011), Berlin (2014), Paris (2014), Amsterdam
(2014) and Rome (30 January 2014). In total, 38 centres have been opened in
30 countries in 7 years from 2009 to 2016 since the establishment of the Yu-
49 Yunus Emre Institute Foundation Comission, .
50 YEE Strateji, Yunus Emre enstitüsü 2015-2018 stratejik planı, 2015, , s. 11.
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nus Emre Institute51. The Institute plans to open cultural centres in cities like
Beijing, Washington, New York, Kuala Lumpur, Delhi, Kuwait, Qatar, Dubai,
Madrid, and Athens in the years 2017-2018.
The activities of the Yunus Emre Institute and Cultural Centres can be
divided into two sections; education activities and culture-art activities. In
line with the objective of the Yunus Emre Institute to make Turkish a world
language, the basic duty and function of the Yunus Emre Institute Turkish
Cultural Centre was determined to be teaching Turkish. The cultural centres
initially operated as language courses. The institute aimed to become the sole
and leading institution for the teaching of Turkish to foreigners and devel-
oped material within this framework as well as the “Turkish Proficiency Exam”
(TYS in Turkish origin), which would be an equivalent to TOEFL and IELTS52.
This would ensure a standard examination with international validity like the
Western countries. In addition, the Yunus Emre Institute organizes “Turkish
Summer School” every year. It started to be organized in 2010 and covered all
expenses of the participants, which amounted to one thousand students from
57 different countries. The students are provided with opportunities to get to
know the Anatolian culture and participate in various culture-art activities by
visiting various cities of Turkey accompanied by culture guides. Finally, all the
groups meet in Istanbul to share their experiences in different cities of Turkey.
Attention is paid to keeping Turkish as the language of communication so that
the students can improve their speaking skills and establish cultural proximity.
Yunus Emre Institute Turkish Cultural Centres organizes culture-art fes-
tivals (film, food festival, traditional art festival), competitions (poem reading,
painting, composition, song, drama), clubs (chat, cinema and children club),
scientific and academic meetings (conference, symposium, panel, interviews),
fairs (language, book, education, promotion and tourism fairs), courses (tradi-
tional Turkish hand crafts, music, food, photography, painting and folk dance),
concert, exhibition, paper marbling, poem reading, autograph sessions and
workshops. At this point, the cultural centres have reached a level of organ-
izing around 500 culture and art events a year. This means that Turkey has
learned cultural diplomacy and improved its practice very quickly.
In addition, Yunus Emre Institute carries out six huge projects such as
Turcology, Turkish Elective Foreign Language, Rebuilding the Cultural Herit-
age in the Balkans, Revival of the Traditional Turkish Hand Crafts in the Bal-
kans, 100 Turkey Library Project, 100 Turkey Book Translation Project and
Joint Painting Exhibitions53. Furthermore, the Yunus Emre Institute developed
51 YEE Faaliyet, Yunus Emre enstitüsü 2014 faaliyet raporu, , s.6.
52 Turkish proficiency exam (TYS).
53 Yunus Emre enstitüsü-projeler. http://eski.yee.org.tr/belcika-bruksel/fr/projects/on-going-
projects.
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various projects to be implemented in 2014-2015 like Turkish Village, Turkey
Bookstore, On-Site History Project, Turkish Cage Project, Turkish Education to
the Turkish Children in Europe and Distant Turkish Teaching. The Turcology
project aims to have a huge number of speakers of Turkish from the Balkans
to Caucasia and from Africa to the Middle East. The Turcology project is car-
ried out under cooperation with the universities abroad by sending lecturers
from Turkey. Within this framework, Yunus Emre Institute sent around 58 lec-
turers to 64 universities in nearly 40 countries in academic year of 2014-2015
within the scope of the project54. The project also includes various supports,
like scholarships to the successful students learning Turkish abroad and allo-
cating scholarships for training young Turcologists. Again within the scope of
the Turcology project, support is provided to the different projects on Turkish
language, history, art and culture and to activities that promote Turkish lan-
guage and culture. Beyond this, the Institute follows a strategy to have Turkish
language be taught as an elective foreign language in the schools of the host
countries where the cultural centres are located. In this context, the Ministries
of Education of the cantons of Hersek-Neretva, Bosna-Podrinye, Zenica-Doboj
of the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina issued a decision to teach Turkish as
the second elective language from 6th grade to 13th grade in the primary and
secondary schools in the academic year of 2012-201355. In addition, Turkish is
taught as elective foreign language in Georgia, Morocco, Tunis and Algeria.
With project of rebuilding cultural heritage in the Balkans, work has
been carried out to repair, maintain, preserve, and transfer to the digital me-
dia, Ottoman manuscripts that were destroyed during different wars in seven
countries in the Balkans (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo,
Serbia, Monte Negro, and Croatia). This aims to re-strengthen the historic
ties of the Balkans with Turkey56. The project of reviving the traditional Turkish
handcrafting in the Balkans aims to revive the forgotten arts in the region. Fi-
nally, Turkey Libraries Project aims to establish 100 Turkey libraries all around
the world.
The Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB):
Diaspora diplomacy
Turkey started to engage in diaspora diplomacy for the first time during the
JDP rule by opening the YTB. It was decided during the JDP government that
54 Hayati Develi, “Yunus Emre enstitüsü başkanı Prof. Dr. Hayati Develi: Hedefimiz yurtdışın-
da 100 kültür merkezi”, Edebiyat Haber, 2015, http://www.edebiyathaber.net/yunus-emre-
enstitusu-baskani-prof-dr-hayati-develi-hedefimiz-yurtdisinda-100-kultur-merkezi/.
55 “Türkçe Saraybosna da seçmeli ders oldu”, Hürriyet, 2013, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/turkce-
saraybosna-da-secmeli-ders-oldu-24682603.
56 Bülent Sarper Ağır ve Arman M. N., “Turkish Foreign Policy towards the Western Balkans in the
Post-Cold War Era: Political and Security Dimensions”, in Turkey’s Foreign Policy and Security
Perspectives in the 21st Century. Sertif Demir (ed.), Roca Raton: BrownWalker Press, 2016, ss.
143-166.
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the need to implement a state policy towards the Turkish diaspora was an is-
sue of debate as “Foreign Turks” in the Turkish foreign policy57. As the concept
of foreign Turks has a negative connotation with imperialistic expansion, the
government preferred to use the concepts of Turks Abroad and Related Com-
munities for the Turkish diaspora. The opening justification of the institution
and its area of duty are based upon the phrase in the 62nd article of the consti-
tution which reads “the state takes the necessary measures to provide the fam-
ily union, education, cultural needs and social securities, connection with the
homeland of the Turkish citizens working in foreign countries and to help them
in their return to the homeland”58. Thereupon, the area of duty of YTB was de-
termined in the 1st Article of the law of establishment as “carrying out works
regarding our citizens living abroad, to produce solutions to their problems;
carrying out activities for these communities to develop social, cultural and
economic relations with the cognate and related communities”59. Hence, the
target audience of the Directorate is the Turkish citizens living abroad, cognate
and related communities. Its vision was determined to be “looking out for all
Turks wherever they are”. The agency acts on this principle and aspires to find
solutions to the problems of cognate and related communities, to strengthen
their ties with Turkey and to protect their cultural values.
In order to realize above mentioned vision and mission, YTB organized
its corporate organization in five different areas of work: Overseas Citizens,
Cognate and Related Communities, NGOs, Law and International Students60.
The main target audience of the Overseas Citizens unit was the 6 million Turk-
ish citizens living throughout the world. This made the core diaspora popula-
tion of Turkey and YTB focus. Besides, the cognate and related communities
with around 250 million people are the other potential diaspora of Turkey.
The overseas citizens unit carries out activities for protection of the overseas
citizens against assimilation, to guarantee their existence in their countries,
to protect their social and cultural links with Turkey. Therefore, “Overseas
Citizens Advisory Board” was created in December 201261. Consequently, the
board consists of 80 members representing 19 countries and regions and it is
the “Turkish Diaspora Assembly” as stated by Bekir Bozdağ, then the Deputy
Prime Minister. More than that, YTB plans to increase the number of foreign
57 Mustafa Aydın, “Kafkasya ve Orta Asya’yla ilişkiler”, in Türk Dış Politikası: Kurtuluş Savaşından
Bugüne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar. Baskın Oran (ed.), İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2008, s. 370.
58 YTB Kanun, Yurtdişi Türkler ve akraba topluluklar başkanliği teşkilat ve görevleri hakkinda
kanun, 2004, Resmi Gazete, 6/4/2010. .
59 a.g.e.
60 YTB Teşkilat, Yurtdışı Türkler ve akraba topluluklari başkanliği teşkilat. https://www.ytb.gov.
tr/teskilat.php.
61 YVDK, Yurtdışı vatandaşlar danişma kurulu yönetmelik”, http://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eski-
ler/2012/07/20120721-19.htm
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missions to 228 as of 2016 and to 250 between 2016 and 201762. The board pur-
sues to develop and organize a social dialogue environment with the Turkish
citizens living abroad. The Cognate and Related Communities unit aspires to
develop and strengthen the historic, cultural, social, and economic ties of Tur-
key with these communities and carries out related activities to these goals.
Furthermore, the NGOs unit carries out activities to support the organi-
zation of the overseas citizens under NGOs in their current countries and to
increase the effectiveness of these organizations. The unit attempts to ensure
they retain representation in the public and country politics through NGOs
and it develops projects to encourage organized participation in the politics of
their current living countries as part of civil society organizations. The reason
for following an NGO-like strategy is that the global system and politics have
operated through civil society and NGOs as of 1990s. When we look at the
conditions of the overseas Turks with respect to civil society organizations,
we understand that they have a high potential even if they are independent
from each other. Just in Germany alone, there are around 2000 NGOs with as-
sociation status carrying out works for the foreign citizens. The biggest NGO
in Germany is DITIB (Religious Affairs Turkish Islam Union) that combines 896
associations under a sole foundation63. The unit aspires to help the Turkish
diaspora by organizing the current potential as NGOs and it plans to create the
Turkish World Diaspora Council and Diaspora Congresses through the union
of the NGOs. In addition, this unit carries out capacity development training
programs to develop the capacities of current NGOs and to teach different
ways of organizing the overseas Turks under NGOs. The unit also organizes
social dialogue programs to help establish regular communication network
among the Turkish NGOs. The law unit organizes international law training
programs to produce solutions to the legal problems overseas citizens may be
having and to provide awareness of their legal rights. The major public diplo-
macy activities of the agency can be listed as being, an overseas young lead-
ers program, leadership education programs, cultural exchange and education
programs and cultural tour camps.
In addition to these activities, YTB combined different higher educa-
tion scholarships that were granted to international students by various state
agencies under an individual foundation called “Turkey Scholarships”. The first
implementation of the Turkey Scholarships was done in 2012, and can be con-
sidered as one of the greatest public diplomacy activities of Turkey and equiva-
lent to the Fulbright scholarship in the U.S. Likewise, the scholarships granted
to foreign students by several state agencies like Turkish Council of Higher
62 Bekir Bozdağ, Yurt dışı vatandaşlar danışma kurulu toplantısı”, Haberler, 2013, http://www.
haberler.com/yurt-disi-vatandaslar-danisma-kurulu-toplantisi-4739308-haberi/.
63 DITIB, Hakkında.
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Education (YÖK), the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Tur-
key (TUBİTAK) and TİKA used to be independent from each other and without
any programs under public diplomacy. However, since 2011, YTB guides these
scholarships to make Turkey a base of education through the public diplomacy
perspective. These scholarships are channelled into categories according to
the tendency of the Turkish foreign policy usually towards Turkish speaking
countries (Central Asia), Balkans, Africa, Harran (Middle East), Estuary (South
Asian countries), Bosporus (India, China, Japan, South Asia, Brazil) and Ana-
tolia (Afghanistan, Somali). Stunningly, the demand for Turkey scholarships
increased rapidly from 2003 to 2016. Initially, YTB had a demand for scholar-
ships around 90 thousand annually, while there were 155 thousand applica-
tions from 182 countries for the Turkey Scholarships between 2015 and 201664.
Scholarships were granted to more than 50 thousand students between 2012
and 2016. In conjunction with the increase in scholarships, the number of for-
eign students in Turkey increased as well. Thus, Turkey entered the interna-
tional education market as a new player.
In conclusion, YTB operates like a “Diaspora Ministry” for the purpose
of building a lobbying arm globally for Turkey. Likewise, the Overseas Citizens
Advisory Board (YVDK) continues to operate as “the Turkish Diaspora Assem-
bly” from 2012. Turkey wants to build a Turkish lobby using the Turkish dias-
pora such as the Jewish and Armenian lobbies have been created by respective
countries instead of depending on others to lobby for it. From the perspective
of the Turkish foreign policy, Turkey was incomplete and weak until now in
the fields of diaspora and lobbying. For instance, Turkey asks for help from
Israel and Greek lobbies from time to time depending on the matter as it does
not have a lobby in Washington D.C. However, the country was in hard posi-
tions especially recently when its relations with these two lobbies broke down.
Therefore, the need of developing diaspora and lobbying politics of its’ own is
critical for the Country. The diaspora is vital component for public diplomacy
and it opens areas in other countries. It is especially important in international
relations as respect to lobbying roles and it can serve as leverage. In this con-
text, it could be argued that Turkey started to follow the diaspora policy very
late with YTB being established in 2011. As can be understood from the above
activities of the institution, it is believed that the diaspora policy of Turkey
are organizing the overseas Turkish citizens, cognate and related communities
and to make use of them, particularly in respect to lobbying activities. It is sug-
gested that Turkey aims to reach its’ global diaspora community with it so that
it can use it as soft power in its international relations.
64 “Türkiye bursları’na 155 bin aday başvurdu”, Hürriyet, 2015, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/
turkiye-burslarina-155-bin-aday-basvurdu-28667790.
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Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA): Foreign Aid and
Humanitarian diplomacy
Turkey adopted public diplomacy as a foreign policy in 2000s; however, the soft
power policy was implemented at institutional level in 1990s for the first time
with TİKA. After the collapse of Soviets in 1991, Turkey established the agency
in 1992 as an institution to create soft power and to enlarge its influence in
the Balkans, Caucasia and Central Asia65. TİKA was initially established as a
technical aid agency and its purpose was to remove the separation created
during the Soviet rule by reviving the socio-cultural and historic ties between
Turkey and those related communities where Turkish language was spoken.
For this purpose, TİKA realized cooperation projects in the field of economics,
trade, socio-cultural areas and education. Further, Turkey provided the agency
with great amounts of loans and grants for the development of the countries
in the region it was targeting. This way TİKA served as a soft power institution
that increases its effectiveness by filling the power vacuum that emerged in
Balkans, Caucasia and Central Asia after USSR.
Under the JDP government, TİKA was reorganized in 2011 within the
framework of public diplomacy. Firstly, the word “development” in the name
of the agency was replaced with the word “coordination” and the principle of
coordinated work was done with the other public diplomacy institutions66. In
addition, the agency was supposed to work in coordination with the equivalent
international organizations. To continue, the agency, which used to operate
as a technical aid organization, was to adapt to the conditions of the current
period and work on project base operations. On that account, foreign grant
aids were transformed to projects instead of the old way of giving cash pay-
ment. Therefore, the organization and overseas coordination structure of the
agency was re-structured. Accordingly, the organization, and the structuring
of the agency occurred in four regions in accordance with areas of influence
Turkish foreign policy had, that is: Central Asia and Caucasia, Balkans and
Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, East and South Asia, Pacific and Latin
America Departments. TİKA previously had focused on the Balkans, Caucasia
and Central Asia but during the JDP government its focus was transformed in
line with the expansions of JDP foreign policy towards the Middle East, Africa
and Latin America. This made the geographic activity of TİKA a global one con-
sidering the areas it covered. The agency had 12 foreign offices in 2002 and this
number was increased to 50 in 2016 as an extension of the regional expansions
in foreign policy. Additionally, it was Central Asia, which was the number one
recipient of development aid, but now Africa and Central Asia have replaced
65 TİKA Tarihçe, “TİKA tarihçemiz”, 2016, .
66 TİKA Mevzuat, Türk işbirliği ve koordinasyon ajansı başkanlığının teşkilat ve görevleri hakkın-
da kanun”, TİKA, 2011, http://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2011/11/20111102-1.htm.
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it. According to the 2014 data, the project expenditure of TİKA for the Middle
East and Central Asia reached USD 369 million67. The money that the agency
spent on global projects in 2014 reached USD 3.6 billion68. The countries that
benefitted the most from the aid were Syria, Tunisia, Palestine, Somali, Sudan,
Afghanistan, Egypt and Bosnia Herzegovina.
Upon the reorganization of TİKA, its fields of activity started to include
various sectors like social infrastructure services, education, health, agricul-
ture, population, water, administrative and civilian infrastructure services,
and economic infrastructure services. The number activities done by the
agency in the different areas mentioned reached 2 thousand projects between
1992-2002,while this number was more than 11 thousand between 2002-2014
this means that an increase of 96% occurred in the official development aid69.
Moreover, the projects realized by the agency covered 28 countries between
1992-2002 while this number was more than 140 countries in years between,
2003-2014. In this way, TİKA became a prestigious institution for Turkey, when
it came to implementing foreign aid and humanitarian diplomacy at a global
level. Besides, TİKA contributed greatly to the international prestige of Tur-
key and gave it an image of aid providing country instead of an aid receiving
country. Thanks to these activities of the agency, the UN World Food Program
announced Turkey as a rising donor country. In addition, TİKA became a mile-
stone of the policy of Turkey when it came to becoming a global actor. Like-
wise, by diversifying the Turkish foreign policy, the agency became both an
indispensable instrument of foreign policy and the main institution for pro-
viding soft power for Turkey. In the final analysis, the activities of TİKA and its
existence at a global level increased affection and sympathy for Turkey and
ensured that it was viewed as a formidable global actor.
The Restructuration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs that had implemented conventional diplomacy
was restructured by a new organization law adopted after an interval of 16
years in order to adapt to the changing global system and transforming diplo-
macy. Accordingly 10 new units were established within the ministry70. Those
related to public diplomacy were Deputy General Directorate for Cultural Di-
plomacy, General Directorate for Information, Public Diplomacy Unit, Public
Communication Department, Diplomacy Academy Department and Informa-
tion Technologies Department, While, The General Directorate for Overseas
67 TİKA Rapor, TİKA Türkiye kalkınma yardımları 2014 Raporu, http://www.tika.gov.tr/upload/
publication/KYR%20%202014.PDF, s.14.
68 a. g. e. s. 9
69 TİKA Dünyası, “TİKA dünyası”, 2013. , s. 6.
70 Ü. Ünsal, “T.C. Dışişleri Bakanlığı ve yeni teşkilat kanunu”., Türk Dış Politikası: Kurtuluş Savaşından
Bugüne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar, Baskın Oran (ed.), İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2013, s. 240.
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Promotion and Cultural Relations was established as the unit responsible for
cultural diplomacy. Deputy General Directorate for Cultural Diplomacy was
also established. The objective of this unit was to promote the country via
cultural activities; another duty was to provide coordination and diplomatic
assistance for the Yunus Emre Institute and the overseas Yunus Emre Institute
Turkish Culture Centres. Furthermore, the unit conducts the bilateral cultural
agreements and exchange program agreements and under the JDP rule it ex-
tracted new cultural cooperation and exchange agreements with 29 countries
in 10 years. In addition, the directorate organizes and supports comprehensive
mutual activities abroad like “Culture Years”, “Turkish Culture Weeks”, “Turkish
Culture Days”, “Turkish Cinema Days” and “Turkish Film Weeks”.
The duty of the General Directorate for Information was to carry out
relations with media, to ensure communication with foreign public and to
plan and execute the activities in public diplomacy as direct to by the units
of the ministry for public diplomacy. What is more, this unit had the duties of
press information and public enlightenment, promotion of foreign policy to
the national and international press. The Department for Diplomacy Academy
conducts appreciated works to make the Turkish Ministry of Foreign affairs a
centre of interest and attraction with its “Foreign Young Diplomats Educa-
tion Program” for foreign diplomats. Likewise, cooperation agreements were
signed in the last 10 years between 38 countries and the Diplomacy Academy
and 17 cooperation protocols and exchange agreements were signed in 2012
alone. The Department of Information Technologies carries out duties that
make the ministry effective on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and You-
Tube in various languages.
TRT World and Anadolu Agency: Media Wars
TRT is a state television channel that carries out activities in the communica-
tion and information field of public diplomacy, and it was reorganized to run
like CNN or BBC by way of establishing TRT World. The reason for this was to
increase Turkey’s power of mass communication instruments and new social
media tools in global politics particularly during 2000s. In addition, states had
started to have an increasing tendency to use media as a diplomatic lever-
age and even as a weapon to ensure the support of the international public
opinion when it came to international relations. Beyond that, the fact that the
global politics turned to an intellectual and ideological war caused different
states to apply a new structuring in the field of media. In this context, CNN in
USA, BBC in Britain, Russia Today in Russia, CCTV in China, DW in Germany
and Al-Jazeera in the Arab World were already well positioned to wage these
global media wars. Therefore, Turkey entered the international media wars en-
vironment with institutions like TRT World and Anadolu Agency.
The understanding that Turkey needed global media instruments to
help and explain and defend its own policies, like the West had been doing,
developed within the framework of public diplomacy under the JDP govern-
ment. The international channels of TRT have become the voice of Turkey re-
garding to its country story as an international instrument for political com-
munication. Thus, TRT serves the function of being a communication bridge
for Turkey with the world. These international channels are the face and im-
ages of Turkey as it was opening to the world and they were established as the
main instrument of establishing a public opinion for the benefit of the country.
Hence, in public diplomacy, the state used global TV channels broadcasting
in different cultures to create public opinion and gain the support from the
international community. Therefore, TRT has progressed towards becoming
the indispensable communication instrument of the Turkish public diplomacy
and one of the most effective tools to build Turkey as an attractive country and
to build a positive perception of it.
Conclusion: Syrian Crisis and the Fall of Soft Power and Public Diplomacy
Turkey was able to have a successful public diplomacy and soft power policy
between 2003 and 2013. During this decade, JDP leaders initially achieved their
goal of drawing the attention of the world by promoting an admirable market-
ing of the foreign policy they implemented. The government argued that they
followed a soft power-based policy to develop socio-cultural and trade rela-
tions by leaving security-based and hard power-based politics of the former
governments behind. The JDP leaders launched their foreign policy in to the
world by using various rhetoric and discourses. Firstly, they claimed that Tur-
key was no more a front country like it was during the period of Cold War but
a central country with its historical, cultural and geographical ties. Besides,
Foreign Minister Davutoğlu declared that Turkey’s objective was to become a
regional power and a global actor by using heroic discourses such as proactive
and rhythmic diplomacy, zero-problem policy and multi-dimensional foreign
policy71. Thus, JDP leaders designed the Turkish foreign policy around various
peculiar metaphors and rhetoric to draw an image of soft power to the rest of
the world. However, the Middle East-oriented soft power and public diplo-
macy policies of Turkey were blocked by the Arab Spring, the Syrian crisis and
certain policies implemented from 2011 on.
Historically, the relationship between Syria and Turkey had recurring
problems since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey due to border and
water issues. The normalization process between Turkey and Syria first start-
ed with Syria’s declaration of October 1998 that expelled Abdullah Öcalan,
the leader of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) terrorist organization that
71 Ahmet Davutoğlu, a. g. m. s. 82.
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conducts terrorist actions against Turkey. Thereafter, the JDP took power, and
closer relations begun between the two countries from 2003 on. In August
2008, the leaders of the two countries were so close that they had a joint vaca-
tion in Bodrum. Additionally, a high level council for strategic cooperation was
established between the two countries and the two countries had almost joint
cabinet meetings at times. The relationship between the two countries in years
between 2003 and 2011 was often referred to as honeymoon and golden age in
the academic circles and the press. However, during the Arab Spring process,
the Syrian crisis emerged when the Syrian President Esad started to fight with
his own people instead of conducting reforms. During this time, the Minister
of Foreign Affairs Davutoğlu had frequent trips to Syria and made attempts to
persuade Esad to heed the people’s demands and to reform instead of fight
his own people. However, these attempts by Turkey failed and the government
changed its Syrian policy after the emergence of civil war in Syria and the mass
killing of people by Esad. The Syrian policy of Turkey was obsessively built on
having Esad leaving72. In this framework, Turkey started to support the oppo-
nents of the Esad regime in military and logistic aspects while the relations
of the two countries turned from soft power to hard power and even to some
war aspects73.
Syria was the pilot country of the model country and soft power policy
of Turkey. However, the Syria crisis halted the rise of Turkey as a soft power in
the Middle East and in the world through its policy since 2003, it also caused
Turkey to abandon its soft power policy in foreign policy and turn to hard pow-
er. In this context, the Syrian crisis brought to the end the soft power and pub-
lic diplomacy policy of the government. The Syrian crisis did not only break the
relationship between the two countries, but also Turkey had to start a military
operation called the Euphrates Shield in Syria after the mass killing of Syrian
people by Esad. Beyond that Turkey started for the first time to provide mili-
tary aid to the opponents in other countries in their fight against the regime.
Thus, the Syrian crisis made Turkey again a front country like it had been dur-
ing the Cold War era. Beyond that, the multidimensional foreign policy has
been blocked since 2013 because of the Arab Spring and Syrian crisis. The
relations of Turkey with its neighbours started to deteriorate, foreign missions
and ambassadors were called back and Turkey became alone in the world, par-
ticularly in its own region. This condition that Turkey was facing was explained
in August 2013 as “precious loneliness” by İbrahim Kalın, the diplomacy chief
advisor of the President and then the speaker of the President’s office74.
72 D. Ertuğrul, “Türkiye Dış Politikası için bir test: Suriye krizi”, TESEV, 2015, http://tesev.org.tr/
wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Turkiye_Dis_Politikasi_Icin_Bir_Test_Suriye_Krizi.pdf, s. 2.
73 C. Phillips, “Into the quagmire: Turkey’s frustrated Syria policy”, Chathamhouse, 2012, , s. 2.
74 İbrahim Kalın, “Dış politikada ‘değerli yalnızlık’ dönemi”, Hürriyet, 2013, http://www.hurriyet.
com.tr/dis-politikada-degerli-yalnizlik-donemi-24553602.
Since 2003, the Turkish foreign policy under JDP leadership has been
multidimensional from the Middle East to Africa, from Europe to Latin Amer-
ica. It started to be limited within the Middle East and even Syria as of 2013.
In other words, the strategic depth of Foreign Minister Davutoğlu was con-
tained within the Syria policy alone. This referred to the end of the multidi-
mensional period of the Turkish foreign policy. The Syrian crisis ended both
the Arab Spring and the soft power of the Turkish foreign policy. The most
tragic point is the fact that the ambition for leadership of JDP policymakers
in the Middle East and the discourse that the Muslim world would rise up
under the leadership of Turkey failed. The Syrian crisis ended the moderate
Islam policy of the U.S that was aimed at the transformation of the radical
movements and administrations in the Middle East and the model country
policy of Turkey, while it also caused the emergence of a conflictual dynam-
ics between the Muslims in the region. On the other hand, the Syrian crisis
caused Turkey to quarrel with almost all its neighbours except Saudi Arabia
and Qatar.
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