Turkey’s State Problem

There is a recurrent state crisis in Turkey. The failed July 15, 2016, coup attempt exposed the failure of available mechanisms to tackle this crisis, which surfaced at a time of systemic transformation from parliamentary rule to an executive presidential system in Turkey. The ruling political elite suggested this transformation as a panacea to bureaucratic tutelage, which was considered as a barrier to an effective government. The shift from an administrative to entrepreneurial mode of executive rule was designed to defeat the crisis through improving good governance. In this sense, the presidential system brought a new state structure and majoritarian understanding of politics, with the president holding the monopoly on power at the center. While the shift to the presidential system is still a process in the making, it is far from addressing the state crisis and the toxic atmosphere of political polarization and deinstitutionalization in Turkey. This special issue on state crisis in Turkey provides snapshots of the crisis across different realms of the state Senem B. Çevik’s article examines Turkey’s global influence from a soft power perspective. The concept of soft power in international affairs was popularized at the end of the Cold War with the expansion of the liberal hegemony. Soft power aims to extend a country’s influence at times of peace and thus prevent wars and conflict. By this token, soft power promotes the values of the liberal hegemony and is thus defined by those values. As the foundations of power moved away from hard resources to softer resources after the end of the Cold War, governance, democracy, and cultural values became indispensable in determining a nation’s global influence. A nation’s tangible and intangible assets are assumed to produce attraction and by extension influence. The founding father of soft power, Joseph Nye, argues that countries may obtain the outcomes they want in world politics because other countries are admiring their values, emulating their example, and aspiring to their level of prosperity and openness. Despite the growing popularity of the use of soft power since the end of the Cold War, the trend has been in a downward spiral over the last few years with the resurgence of hard power politics in global affairs. Although soft power has still not fully fallen out of favor, it has received significant pushback from authoritarian regimes and illiberal democracies. For example, in a June 2019 interview with the Financial Times, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that the liberal order has become obsolete. Thus, the appeal of hard power in international relations and the apparent decline of liberal hegemony have shifted discussions on soft power. Today, a plethora of new actors are employing new methods to expand their global influence. Given this momentous change in discussions regarding soft power, this article examines Turkey’s current soft power capacity and attributes by analyzing its soft power resources in the period from