Structural problems challenging Turkish foreign policy

written by Suat KINIKLIOGLU

Tuesday, 16 August 2005

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, our foreign policy establishment has been experiencing difficulties adjusting to a new, complicated, multi-layered and volatile policy environment. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) continues to grapple with the emergence of new dynamics in regions around Turkey such as the Caucasus, Balkans, the Black Sea, Central Asia and the Middle East. Gone are the days of security, predictability and tranquility of the Cold War years. These days our diplomats are working hard to overcome the structural changes in our environment and the lack of expertise about many of these regions and the increasing complexity of this new environment. Understaffed, underpaid and plagued by the conservative institutional culture of the MFA, they are putting up a brave fight against the challenges that confront them on a daily basis.

Yet, many of the difficulties faced by our foreign policy establishment are self-inflicted. The problem has a number of dimensions. First, our foreign policy establishment has not been able to rid itself of the dangerous self-perception that the MFA is and should be the exclusive actor in the field. The ministry has difficulty in coming to terms with the fact that modern foreign policy is conducted by a number of actors, including nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, analysts, the media and academics. Neither have they been able to overcome our perennial lack of employing public diplomacy as a foreign policy tool. Secondly, coordination among the official units of the foreign policy establishment is far from harmonious. There is an astonishing lack of coordination and incredible institutional jealousy among the players. Thirdly and most worrisome, there is a lack of vision and creativity in the policy-making community. I will be mostly dealing with the first component of the problem in this article.

Indeed, it would be great if -- as in the old days -- business could be conducted in such a manner that the ministry held a monopoly in the field. Those days were relatively safe, when foreign policy was the business of a privileged few. With great missionary zeal, a small number of refined men engaged in “high politics” and were privy to the secrets and details of our international dealings.

Unfortunately -- at least from a Turkish diplomatic perspective -- those days are history. These days, the foreign policy game is much more complex, its environment and actors have multiplied and its issues are multi-layered and often require either functional or regional expertise. Besides the official wing, the new actors in the foreign policy arena are NGOs, think tanks, research centers, analysts and influential individuals. Furthermore, public diplomacy and professional communication strategies are also part of the game. Many policy changes, critical communication and testing of policy shifts occur in non-official settings such as conferences, seminars, workshops and other similar events. In fact, a good percentage of activity is now occurring in non-official settings as the gravity of policy dialogue shifts towards these less-riskier and more flexible platforms.

As a Turkish citizen, I am mostly aggrieved to see that Turkey is not adequately represented on many of these platforms. More often than not, Turks are not part of the discourse and thus have no influence on the shaping of ideas at such gatherings. Why is this so? The problem is multifaceted. The primary issue is the continued resistance of our foreign policy bureaucracy to recognize that NGOs, think tanks, the media and analysts are legitimate actors and have a role to play. There seems to be a very structured and disciplined aversion to the idea that such actors may influence policy discourse, may become part of the game and are taken into consideration by foreign interlocutors. Of course, there are reasons behind such perceptions. The most obvious is a strong institutional culture, ingrained in a strong state-centered understanding that views the official aspect of the business as the “only” aspect of business. Public diplomacy, regional expertise, analysis and think-tank work are usually disregarded and shunned to a secondary level. This state of affairs of our foreign policy pursuits resembles a football game in which the Turkish team has seven players whereas its opponents play with a full team of 11 players. By disregarding and not acknowledging an emerging class of non-state actors in the field, the Turkish football team lacks a good three or four players on the field and thus is severely disadvantaged against its opponents. No wonder that we suffer significant difficulties in furthering our foreign policy objectives as it is difficult to win a game with such a deficient starting lineup.

Another point that should be stressed is the growing need for functional and regional expertise. Coming from a tradition that favors “generalists,” we have difficulty in finding adequate human resources that can deal with specific challenges confronting us. Turkey's new policy environment increasingly requires regional and functional expertise that can shape the decision-making process. These days require understanding the complicated relationships between religion, politics, terrorism, energy, trade interests and security. These are days where Ankara needs to understand the dynamics of minority groups in Iraq, the inter-relationship between Armenian diaspora groups in North America, the function of Alawis in Syria, the politics of Islam in the Middle East and ethnic politics in the Caucasus. Many of these issues require full-time experts who devote their careers to such fields. Diplomats trained to become generalists serve limited appointments and move from one post to another just when they acquire some sort of expertise in a given field. The post-Soviet geopolitical space is a telling example where we continue to lack an adequate understanding of the environment in which we are operating.

Overall, it is clear that Turkey's foreign policy community faces significant structural problems. We need to acknowledge that the rules of the game have changed. Hence, we need to include other relevant actors and view the policy community as a diverse environment with due recognition to non-state actors. We need to find the institutional creativity to incorporate regional and functional expertise into the rigid structure of the ministry. Finally, yet importantly, Turkey needs an independent public diplomacy institution. Only when we recognize that we have to engage in structural reform are we able to become an effective foreign policy actor. Our multifaceted regional identity and the global significance of our destiny surely warrant such a transformation.