Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 PhD, Department of Political Science (Political Sociology), Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran
2 M.A, Department of International Relations, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Today, political analysts consider that the concept of "smart power" has developed as a result of the combination of "soft power - hard power". The case study of the current research confirms this claim; This means that Turkey, during the last two decades, to advance its goals and realize its interests, has combined soft and hard power mechanisms such as the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency, the Public Diplomacy Coordinating Organization, the Yunus Emre Institute, the Radio Organization and Turkish State Television, Anadolu Agency, Organization of Turks Abroad and Related Communities, International Organization of Turkish Culture, Turkish Red Crescent, the Office of Religious Affairs, Turkish Education Foundation, etc. It is a powerful presence and gaining national, regional, and international authority, on the other hand, in the discussion of public diplomacy, beyond these motives, the provision of religious, humanitarian, ethnic, and security goals has been prioritized.
In other words, Turkey's soft power has been effective in its various dimensions during the last two decades and has paved the way for the holders of this power [the Justice and Development Party governments] to have both authority, interests, security, and a kind of Cover the self-concept and the deepening of religious and ideological attitudes with the clothes of realization. So that the leaders of this country, realize this in choosing the field, apart from being in the peripheral regions, they also think about distant regions; Therefore, Turkey is one of the countries in the region that has paid attention to almost all cultural climates in the field of Islam and Muslims. Central Asia, the Caucasus and Transcaucasia, Southwest Asia, the Balkans, the Crimean Islands and beyond, the Horn of Africa, etc., have generally been exposed to the presence and cultural movements of Turkey in recent years.
However, the source and origin of Turkey's soft power should be sought in the deep social, political, and economic developments of this country. This in turn is based on an effective combination of political strategies of the ruling political structures, which intensified the focus of politics on the individual, companies, and civil society organizations. This development included redefining the Turkish political language, giving a new role to business organizations and non-governmental organizations, and reanalyzing the relationship between Islam and democracy.
It is obvious that along with the economic and social changes in the domestic sphere, the emergence and occurrence of important changes in the international scene, such as "the end of the Cold War and consequently the end of the bipolar system", and "Turkey's membership proposal in the European Union" are an opportunity. It provided new possibilities for Turkey, the most important of which was openness from the perspective of foreign policy and trade policy. Turkey's soft power discourse parallels the rise and fall of Turkey's foreign policy; Therefore, it has gone through different periods.
So in the last two decades, when we are facing the single rule of the Justice and Development Party, Turkey's soft power has been influenced by the ups and downs of foreign policy. In other words, according to the political nature of the Justice and Development Party government and the process of domestic, regional, and international political developments, the weight and importance of the aforementioned mechanisms in securing national interests have been different. For example, in the first decade of the Justice and Development Party's rule, i.e. from 2003 to 2013, the role of soft power mechanisms such as Tika and Yunus Emre in smoothing the path of progress and development was much greater. But in the second decade, that is, from 2013 until now, with the beginning of the crises in the Middle East region and Turkish campaigns in areas of Syria and Iraq and the emergence of internal political problems in Turkey such as the Gezi Park crisis and the failed coup of 2016, the role and importance of mechanisms It has become more difficult to secure national interests. The presence and role of Turkish military forces in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Karabagh, and recently in Afghanistan confirms this claim.
So, with the reduction of Turkey's decisive foreign policy and the reduction of international credibility, which served the political program of the Justice and Development Party, the credibility and importance of the discourse of soft power has been greatly weakened, and in a way, it has witnessed a shift in discourse, which means the decline of soft power and We are witnessing the emergence of hard power, in which the role of mechanisms such as the Red Crescent, the Crisis Management Organization, and the Armed Forces have increased exponentially. Regional changes and the failure of developmental policies in West Asia, the increase of radicalism and terrorism, the involvement of foreign powers, and the need to deal with increasing combined threats, etc., are the necessary reasons for the use of hard power at the disposal of Ankara. Contract. Turkey's activity in this sense is mainly based on four pillars:
- Presidential system with extensive executive power and centralized decision-making process;
- a domestic defense industry that increasingly meets the needs of the armed forces locally;
- Trying to have strategic autonomy as a great regional power;
- A professional army with a long history in multi-front combined wars. (found)
The theoretical framework of the current research is based on the theory of "soft power" (theoretical framework) and in terms of methodology, the "process tracing" method has been used from the subsets of case analysis. (Method) In general Four types of "mechanism" definitions have been presented, each of which is concerned with [mostly political-social] issues from a specific dimension:
Mechanism as the cause of an effect [the effect of choosing a certain set of preferences and requirements on social outcomes]; 2. mechanism as a mediating process, event, or variable [discovering the nature, substance, or internal structure]; 3. Mechanism as an indeterminate causal process [causal sequences linking events; causal patterns that occur repeatedly and are easily recognized, but operate under generally unknown conditions or with unknown results]; 4. The mechanism is an intangible thing that creates the result [events that change the relationships between some elements and components of the set; A set of interconnected components or elements that create an effect that does not exist by itself in any of the elements alone].
In the current study, the definition of the fourth type, that is, "mechanism as an intangible thing that creates the result"; has been exploited. In this way, the main hypothesis is that Turkey's soft power supply mechanisms are considered as a set of interconnected components or elements that create an effect that by itself Does not exist in any of the elements alone. In other words, mechanisms such as Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency, Public Diplomacy Coordinating Organization, Yunus Emre Institute, Turkish State Radio and Television Organization, Anadolu Agency, Organization of Turks Abroad and Related Communities, International Organization of Turkish Culture, Administration of the Office of Religious Affairs, Maarif Foundation, Red Crescent, Armed Forces, etc. are an interconnected and at the same time separate complex that the realization of Turkey's soft power depends on their individual and collective actions.
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