Turkey’s humanitarian diplomacy as a soft power tool

Central and East European International Studies Association (CEEISA) and International Studies Association (ISA), June 23-25, 2016 – Ljubljana (Slovenia)

Turkey’s humanitarian diplomacy as a soft power tool Federico Donelli

According to Joseph Nye Jr, “the distinction between hard and soft power is one of degree, both in the nature of the behaviour and in the tangibility of the resource”(Nye Jr 1990, 267). Unlike the hard power, soft power explains fields of influence and attraction beyond military and economic indicators, it refers to a country’s social human capital. This is the reason because it is different from country to country. For Nye soft power, could better seen as a strategy for a country to gain its objectives without coercion or payments, but with attraction (co-optive power) founded on culture, political values, and legitimate and moral foreign policy. During last fifteen years Turkey’s status and role in the international political system has risen toward a medium global player or multi-regionals actor after decades of status-quo oriented agenda. Behind the Turkey pro-active and multidimensional foreign policy there is an increased used of soft power. Turkey’s soft power has gained importance thank to the gradual involvement of new state and non-state actors (agents) along with the adoption of novel frameworks, such as cultural diplomacy, public diplomacy and humanitarian diplomacy (behaviour). In order to better understand Turkey’s growing role, should be consider new analytical approaches and concepts. This work focused on the concept of humanitarian diplomacy. Drawing on the conceptualization of humanitarian diplomacy given by a limited literature on the subject, this ongoing study addresses Turkish understanding of it - its narrative and its implementation -, trying to analyze its features and effectiveness. The paper assumption is that Turkey has used humanitarian diplomacy as a toll to increase its political influence and presence by using persuasion and co-optive power. In other words, humanitarian diplomacy has become part of Turkey’s soft power toolkit. The

research’s aim is to lay bare the humanitarian diplomacy, a less well-known but nevertheless increasingly vital aspect of Turkish foreign policy.