"Turkey has been traditionally viewed mostly as a hard power in the Middle East, due to its military and economic strength. In recent years, however, there has been a discussion on Turkey's soft power. This article focuses on two aspects of Turkey's soft power in the region. First, Turkey's relevance to the debate on political and economic reform is discussed. It is argued that because of Turkey's internal transformations its attractiveness has increased. In addition to having assets, Turkey is generally more willing to project soft power as well as having increasing credibility in the region. Second, the article focuses on Turkey's use of soft power tools, especially its eagerness to play third party roles in the management and resolution of regional conflicts. Turkey's roles in the Israeli-Syrian, Israeli Palestinian and Lebanese conflicts are considered as an example. The article argues that Turkey's soft power has increased in these two aspects and yet it also elaborates on existing and possible constraints in this regard."--Abstract on item.

International Strategic Research Center (ISRO – USAK) proudly announces the release of the report named “Turkey’s Power Capacity in the Middle East: Limits of the Possible” which is prepared by Osman Bahadir Dincer, USAK expert on Middle Eastern affairs, and Mustafa Kutlay, USAK expert on political economy; with the contribution of top-notch academics and USAK researchers from various fields of study. The previous version of the report in Turkish was published in May and introduced to a wide range of audience, from media organs to diplomats, through a conference held in USAK seminar hall. This latter version in English aims to open a new window towards the issues at glance for international researchers as well, by enabling the reader to bypass popular qualitative speculations and have a more clear vision of the quantitative aspect of Turkey’s power projection capabilities in the Middle Eastern theatre through a tri-color prism of diplomacy, economics and soft power. The arguments about whether Turkey is a role model in the Middle East or has attained the level of an “order establishing actor” are frequently voiced in print and visual media, but no systematic empirical analysis of these claims seems to have been carried out. This study sets out to fill this gap. Turkey’s capacity as a regional power is examined empirically, with special emphasis placed on the structural components of Turkey’s growing regional influence, and on the basis of data regarding its diplomatic, economic, and soft power components. This study concludes that Turkey is a country suffering from an “expectations-capabilities gap” in the Middle East, and that until the deficiencies identified in the study are remedied, Turkey will be unable to become a regional leader.

Turkey’s Middle East policy has transformed in recent years and is now more involved in the region, employs more soft power tools and actively engages in third party roles in regional conflicts. Turkey has improved its relations with bordering states as a result of its “zero problems with neighbors” policy. This paper examines the elements of a new Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East and focuses on the reasons for its evolution as well as its structural conditions and political leadership. In discussing these factors this paper aims to identify the circumstances that have created an opening for change. It is argued that those structural conditions which emerged at the beginning of the new millennium coincided with a strategic political leadership that led to this transformation. It is also emphasized that “pull factors” have been important for a new Turkish engagement with the Middle East. Perspectives on Turkey in the region have become more positive in recent years. However, different actors in the Arab world have different perceptions of Turkey and its importance for the region. Some focus on Turkey as a strategic asset in the constantly shifting and highly volatile regional balance of power, while others perceive Turkey more as an important economic partner and critical for the debates on political reform in the region. Finally, this paper focuses on the issue of sustainability of Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East in the face of certain challenges, especially the so-called “Arab Spring”, which has presented difficulties for Turkey in light of the instabilities in various Arab countries and has challenged Turkey’s political and economic interests. The AKP government’s policy towards the region has therefore been evolving and during its first term it positioned itself outside of the polarizations and conflicts in the region and firmly tied its policy to the EU accession process. Such a policy was not only good for Turkey – providing political and economic opportunities – it was also beneficial for the Middle East. However, since 2008 the AKP government’s policy has begun to shift slightly and Turkey would appear to have become more involved in regional polarizations, particularly in relation to Israel and Iran. The weakening of the EU anchor has further contributed to Turkey’s entanglement in the Middle East and the challenge now for Turkey has grown since the geo-political conditions that made Turkey more active in the region have changed. Ultimately, the success of Turkish diplomacy in the Middle East will depend on how far it will manage to respond to the momentous transformations taking place in the region.

This book is a comprehensive analysis of Turkish foreign policy through the concept of “middle power”. The author explores why and how Turkey has constructed middle power identity based on liberal foreign policies, in order to illuminate the change in post-Cold War Turkish state identity in relation to foreign policy behaviors. The author further explores state identity and how changes of circumstances, norms, state self-perception, and the perceptions of others effects that identity. This is done first through a policy analysis of Turgut Özal, Necmettin Erbakan and İsmail Cem and second through an examination of AKP’s foreign policy experiences and ideas, especially in relation to Ahmet Davutoğlu.

This volume examines contemporary political relations between Turkey and the Middle East. In the light of the Arab Uprisings of 2011, the Syria Crisis, the escalation of regional terrorism and the military coup attempt in Turkey, it illustrates the dramatic fluctuations in Turkish foreign policy towards key Middle Eastern countries, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Iraq. The contributors analyze Turkey’s deepening involvement in Middle Eastern regional affairs, also addressing issues such as terrorism, social and political movements and minority rights struggles. While these problems have traditionally been regarded as domestic matters, this book highlights their increasingly regional dimension and the implications for the foreign affairs of Turkey and countries in the Middle East.

The term “soft power” was coined in 1990 to foreground a capacity in statecraft analogous to military might and economic coercion: getting others to want what you want. Emphasizing the magnetism of values, culture, and communication, this concept promised a future in which cultural institutes, development aid, public diplomacy, and trade policies replaced nuclear standoffs. From its origins in an attempt to envision a United States–led liberal international order for a post–Cold War world, it soon made its way to the foreign policy toolkits of emerging powers looking to project their own influence. This book is a global comparative history of how soft power came to define the interregnum between the celebration of global capitalism in the 1990s and the recent resurgence of nationalism and authoritarianism. It brings together case studies from the European Union, China, Brazil, Turkey, and the United States, examining the genealogy of soft power in the Euro-Atlantic and its evolution in the hands of other states seeking to counter U.S. hegemony by nonmilitaristic means. Contributors detail how global and regional powers created a variety of new ways of conducting foreign policy, sometimes to build new solidarities outside Western colonial legacies and sometimes with more self-interested purposes. Offering a critical history of soft power as an intellectual project as well as a diplomatic practice, Soft-Power Internationalism provides new perspectives on the potential and limits of a multilateral liberal global order.

This study examines the soft power of Turkey's foreign policy towards Middle Eastern countries under the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP) or the Justice and Developed party between 2002-2011. Turkey's foreign policy used hard power means to deal with security issues with these countries during the Cold War era. When AKP is in power, however, Turkey adopts and implements soft power in its foreign policy to enhance its relations with the Middle Eastern countries. The objectives of this study are to firstly to determine the main elements of Turkey's soft power, secondly to illustrate the successes of Turkish policy of soft power in the Middle East. The third objective is to evaluate the challenges faced by the Turkish soft power policy towards the Middle Eastern countries. In order to accomplish the research objectives, the study relies on conceptual framework of soft power introduced by Joseph Nye, Jr. for analysis. The method of the study is based on an analytical approach. The findings of the research are summarized as follows: Turkey's democratic model, its public diplomacy, its cultural and economic relations towards the Middle Eastern countries reveal that they have been highly successful in improving Turkey's relations with old rivals such as Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Despite some challenges that face Turkey's soft power such as the limitation of its public diplomacy, principles of democracy, and liberty with the advent of the Arab uprisings and Kurdish issue, Turkey still has the asset, legitimacy, and credibility to use soft power in its foreign policy towards the Middle Eastern countries.