The Economic And Political Reflections Of National Branding In Turkish Foreign Polıcy

Abstract

ROGOZA, Kseniia. The Economic and Political Reflections on National Branding in Turkish Foreign Policy Master's Thesis, Ankara, 2018. Global interconnectedness has gained pace with globalization, meanwhile the global pursuit of wealth and power have resulted in unanticipated variations among countries. Racial, cultural, ethnic and increasingly political differences have become more prominent and each country feels the urgent need to have a competitive identity. This need becomes the most important concern for national security and each country’s development prospects as this thesis will demonstrate. Contemporary world politics can be openly considered as a struggle for competitive brands in the sense that the most effective and successful brands will attract global investors and will contribute to the nations’ prosperity in a broad sense, i.e. economic growth, economic development. In addition, foreign policy and national security goals will be positively influenced by successful national branding. As it will be argued in this thesis, conducting a successful national branding strategy in foreign policy as a relatively new kind of soft power would increase the role of states in international political arena and would facilitate achieving states national interests in the broad sense. Worldwide recognition of the state depends on the successful promotion of well-established and highquality brands, since any market interaction based on “demand-supply” relations has a political component and operates through the marketing strategies of "promotion of trade marks". It is very common that such strong brands are seeking certain monopoly power in the global political economy, this thesis will scrutinize Turkey’s practices in national branding, which would serve as an important and strategic tool in its relations with the outside world. In line with this analysis, this study aims to examine how national branding strategy might help to enhance Turkey’s image in the world political arena and how strategy as soft power would benefit the state. At this point, the linkage between Turkish foreign policy and national branding will be established and the contribution of successful branding to Turkish image will be discussed. Finally, policy recommendations will be given with regard to promotion of Turkish national interests in the world with the aim of maintining balanced foreign relations. Key Words National branding, political economy, Turkish foreign policy, soft power, public diplomacy