A Content Analysis of the AKP's “Honorable” Foreign Policy Discourse: The Nexus of Domestic–International Politics

Abstract

This article examines political leaders' framing strategies during times of public diplomacy crisis. By focusing on the nexus of domestic–international politics, it argues that during public diplomacy crises, policy-makers would like to utilize their speech acts on foreign policy issues to manage expectations of domestic public opinion. This paper's main contention is to demonstrate that the head of AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) government, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has instrumentalized his foreign policy speeches with the label of “honorable” to legitimize AKP's practices at the domestic level.