The case of Turkish interest in AfricaIn August 20U the Turkish prime minister Tayyib Erdogan arrived in Somalia with a substantial delegation consisting of his family, ministers, and civil society activists, along with Turkish celebrities, to highlight the need for greater famine relief. In Mogadishu, Erdogan declared that the tragedy of Somalia is a test of civilization and contemporary values.' For any long-term observer of Turkish interest in Africa, this visit seemed natural-an upshot of Turkey's aspiration to become a regional power that displays a superiority in terms of power capabilities and exerts influence on shaping the regional order.2 Turkey's interest in becoming a regional power in Africa and its strategy in the region warrant analysis. As Tom Wheeler notes, factors shape the development of Turkey-Africa relations, including for example, the assistance to African countries by Turkish government agencies and nongovernmental Turkish religious and development-focused organizations.3 In addition to Turkey's relations with Africa, we are interested generally in theories of the strategies regional powers employ to advance their interests in proximate countries. Thus we view the abovementioned factors in the context of these strategies to shed light on Turkey's growing visibility in Africa.In this article we examine two research questions. The first is how states use their membership in international organizations to attain foreign policy goals, enhance their political visibility, exercise strategic influence in global political affairs, and obtain advantageous policy outcomes. Recently Turkey successfully sought to use international fora, such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the African Union (AU), with which Turkey has a strategic partnership, to launch initiatives with African states to galvanize action on policy matters of common concern among Turkey and African countries. It would be wrong, however, to claim that Turkey seeks a form of hegemony in Africa, as is widely stated about China, India, and other regional powers in the continent.4 Instead, following Sandra Destradi, we prefer to view Turkey's presence in Africa as an effort to involve African states in Turkey's pursuit of material gains by convincing those states of their shared values and goals with Turkey.5 Material gains consist broadly of economic advantages, such as increased trade opportunities and investments, as well as political visibility in global affairs. Economic advantages are easily demonstrable through trade figures, which we present. Political visibility can be qualified on a case-by-case basis, and we examine two such cases. The first is the role of Turkey in the Cotton Forum of the OIC since 2007; the second is Turkey's recent establishment of multilateral and bilateral relations with African states.We believe that there is a clear relationship between an international actor's ideas and interests and its forthcoming policies. Thus the second research question we examine in this article is how state actors deliberately package and frame policy ideas to convince each other, as well as the general public, that particular policy proposals are plausible and acceptable. We apply John Campbell's study of the role of political ideas to the study of the political economy of international relations. Campbell states that many scholars agree that an analytic distinction should be drawn between ideas and interests as determinants of policy, but what they mean by ideas has varied widely from broad notions of culture, shared belief systems, and world views to specific strategies of action and policy programs.6 Campbell therefore argues that whether either interests or ideas are the chief determinants of policy outcomes is a misleading way to pose the issue because it neglects the possibility that it is the interaction between the two that counts.7 We endorse Campbell's suggestion that ideas influenced by policy struggles in which interests, resources, and power loom large are endogenous to the policymaking process. …