A quest for soft power: Turkey and the Syrian refugee crisis

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to bring a communication management perspective to how nations might use their involvement in humanitarian responses to refugee crisis in attempts to improve their global standing through a case study of Turkish efforts during the Syrian Civil War. Design/methodology/approach In order to assess the context of Turkey’s attempts to communicate its humanitarian response to the Syrian refugee crisis and its political discourse, the authors use a two-level analysis. The authors utilize a framing analysis and the informational framework of public diplomacy. The authors conduct a framing analysis of 14 speeches delivered by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavusoglu at various international platforms in order to determine the frames and the information frame strategies employed. The authors investigate how Turkey managed its communication efforts and the ways in which the frames are used to reflect Turkey’s nation brand. Findings The analysis indicates that Turkey uses three frames: benevolent country, righteous side, and global power. These frames indicate that Turkey sees the refugee crisis as a problem resulting from the inefficiency of the international community and presents the “Turkish model” as the benevolent and righteous example to overcome these inefficiencies. Based on the information framework strategies used, it can be argued that the positive impact of these frames on the Turkish brand will be limited to certain audiences mainly due to the communication priorities of the country. Originality/value This study provides a novel communication management outlook on humanitarian aid and public diplomacy through an analysis of Turkey as an illustrative case exemplifying communication of development. This study also demonstrates a framework to assess the communication management strategies of other nations that are encountering global refugee crisis and similar humanitarian relief efforts.

Reassessing Turkey’s Soft Power: The Rules of Attraction

“…Turkey has a strong network of government and nongovernment actors that provide foreign aid, which in turn helps Turkey’s brand as a benevolent nation (Çevik, 2015). Turkey’s humanitarian and development aid have been integral to Turkey’s public diplomacy with its attempts to brand the country as a “donor state” and “benevolent country” (Bacık and Afacan, 2013; Çevik & Sevin, 2017). The politics and rhetoric of its humanitarian aid highlight the ways in which Turkey embraces the image of the Ottoman Empire as a benevolent Empire and its contemporary aid initiatives.…”

“…The Syrian refugee crisis also serves as a functional and a communicative perspective. Turkey’s relief efforts are instrumental in communicating its benevolent nation brand and have thus become a soft power resource (Çevik & Sevin, 2017). In 2015, Turkey was ranked as the second most generous donor country, which was partially due to its US$3.2 billion donation toward Syria and Syrian refugees.…”

Türkiye'nin Suriye Kaynaklı Kitlesel Göçe Yanıtı: Neoklasik Realist Bir Analiz

“…42 (UNHCR, 2020). This has become one of Turkey's most pressing domestic and foreign policy challenges and carries significant implications for Turkey-West relationships, 43 foreign policy strategies in its immediate neighbourhood, 44 public diplomacy, 45 and the evolution of its overall migration governance and policy responses. 46 Turkey's responses to Syrian mass migration can be separated into four temporal phases: 1) open doors supported by assertive foreign policy; 2) internationalization with increasing securitization, 3) EU-orientation with a de-facto closed-door policy; 47 and 4) new developments introduce a new phase that can be labelled "return turn.…”

CSR Implementations in refugee education: the case of Syrians in Turkey

“…Norman (2019) concludes Turkey’s state-engagement with refugees as indifference-as-policy at the end, however, when looking at policy areas such as residency and employment outputs it is fair to say that Turkey holds a more liberal outlook compared to the other two aforementioned countries. As Turkey’s nation brand was losing value due to the non-democratic regime of the country; by giving a response to the refugee crisis, Turkey handled this situation as a new state engagement to re-strengthen its global image in the context of “soft power” (Cevik and Sevin, 2017). In the context of education policies, state engagement strategy looks indifferent at the beginning, but then liberal to Syrian refugee children.…”