The need for public diplomacy

written by Suat KINIKLIOGLU

Tuesday, 23 August 2005

As is commonly said, “Bring together two Turks and you will have three political parties.” Indeed, we do manage to find disagreement among us. If there is one issue that a good number of Turks will agree upon, though, is the dire need to explain effectively our story to others. In other words, we agree on the need for a strong public diplomacy strategy.

Public diplomacy not only deals with specific messages and images but also deals with an overall perception of a country, its policies and its identity. The lack of effective public diplomacy is also a considerable handicap in the pursuit of Turkey's foreign policy objectives. Turkey is not present in the arena of the “battle of ideas.” The battle of ideas, the shaping of public opinion and engaging foreign society in our causes are tools we must employ.

European Union public opinion has become an important factor vis-à-vis our EU aspirations. For this difficult journey to end at its original destination we need to employ a long-term public diplomacy strategy and engage EU public opinion. Irrespective of some of our leaders' “process-based approach” to the EU drive, enlargement has become a significant domestic issue in the EU. As EU states such as France -- and it now appears others, too -- adopt measures that allow public opinion to play a considerable role in relation to EU enlargement, candidate countries must now deal with this factor separately. Turkey's case has been particularly thorny as Ankara has painfully found out that the word of EU leaders at EU summits generally does not translate into domestic efforts by those same leaders in favor of Turkish entry. France is a telling example.  

Although the negotiations in themselves will be difficult and are likely to be tested by growing disillusion and resentment by Turkish domestic forces in the coming years, the task to engage European public opinion should be pursued whatever the perspective with Europe will be in the short term. Theoretically, Turkey could meet all the criteria, negotiate successfully for a decade or so but then be vetoed by one or more of the EU countries via a referendum. This could be a very embarrassing situation, and although it may seem a distant eventuality, our foreign policy community needs to cater for such a scenario.  

Turkey's EU membership issue is not the only area where we could benefit from a strong public diplomacy effort. In many other areas Turkey needs to employ modern communication tools: on the Armenian issue, the Cyprus issue, Iraq and our neighborhood policy. Many Turks feel helpless regarding many of these issues when they realize that Greek Cypriots, Armenians and others have already made considerable headway in the “battle of ideas.” Turkey's friends and allies also complain that they have difficulty in hearing Turkey's version of events at international forums. We can no longer achieve our foreign policy objectives solely by small cultural events organized by our embassies or community associations abroad. The Turkish Promotion Foundation is also far from meeting the challenge and probably could be the theme of a separate article. What we need is a professional public diplomacy institution that will formulate, package and communicate Turkey's image, policies and objectives to a large and diversified audience abroad. It should be allowed to recruit non-partisan and professional human resources from a variety of backgrounds. Such an institution should be tasked to engage in a massive effort to communicate Turkey's messages via modern communication tools. It should explain via a variety of channels Turkey's messages, engage nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, analysts and academics. It should learn from and emulate some of the more successful examples in the West, namely Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which are all countries that exercise sound public diplomacy. There is certainly room to learn from these countries. Although there is a need to compartmentalize our public diplomacy based on specific issues, ultimately what matters is the overall image of a country. What you project in films, on Web sites, in sports and in the arts all figure in the final product. This institution should be independent and funded by a pool that includes the private sector. Dependency on a single ministry or single business group would be most undesirable.

Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs should place more emphasis on Turkish diplomats' public diplomacy responsibilities. We need to incorporate public diplomacy activities into the operational mode of a Turkish diplomat. Embassies should be provided with separate budgets for public diplomacy efforts. New human resources must be added to the ministry to deal with these new challenges.

Should calls for such an institution bear fruit, we will face a number of challenges. Needless to say we will have incredible difficulty in agreeing on what sort of images, lines and policy initiatives we would promote via public diplomacy efforts. It is highly likely that we will be engaging in an intense domestic debate on how our public diplomacy efforts should be conducted. That is inevitable but also necessary as we are still in the process of defining our modern identity. Such challenges should not deter us from the real issue, which is the urgent requirement to address the need for effective public diplomacy.