Turkish Charm and Public Diplomacy: A Literature Review and Critical Assessment on ‎Turkish Soft Power on Middle Eastern Countries

Abstract

The history, political values, economy, foreign policy, culture and geography is a very important tool to exercise the consistent soft power policy and strategy in the world where Turkey’s soft power has that kind of capacity that comes from its “history, culture and geography”. The new Turkish domestic and foreign policy shows that the policy of the current Turkish government is very effective and strategic to apply their charm in foreign policymaking. The area of Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East, Africa, South/Southeast Asia and South America are not out of Turkish soft power policy involvement, engagement and participation even the new Turkish public diplomacy is covering and expanding its soft power impacts on this society very excellently and efficiently. The last decade's Turkish policy engages with their old allies and continues their relations using countless soft power policies and strategies which shows that Turkey as a new emerging actor from the regional and global context. The main argument of this paper is to show Turkey’s soft power policy towards Middle Eastern countries by identifying the Turkish common historical, geographical, religious, cultural, economic and political ties with this region. Accordingly, this paper further analyzes and argues the Turkish Soft Power Policy by taking case assessments and reviews in the literature to explore the economic, political influence like a democratic and economic model to some extent and cultural impacts particularly in lieu of the current government soft power policies, practices and strategies of AKP model, historical ties, Turkey’s humanitarian assistance, TIKA’s development works, the activities of Yunus Emre Institute, YTB scholarship, Turkish Religious Foundation (Diyanet Vakfi) humanitarian and religious roles and also the Turkish Drama Series impacts on the Middle Eastern societies.