National Polar Research as a Manifestation of Turkey’s Soft Power

In the global economy of the 21st century, the production of information and technology and the process of its transformation into economic benefit have become the most important parameter in the relative distribution of power among states. Intending to have a larger share of the global economic pie, Turkey has been trying to conduct an efficient public diplomacy process. Turkish Polar Scientific Expeditions and Researches, which are conducted with national and international academic partnerships, are examined in the context of soft power and public diplomacy. The aim of this study is, as a successful public diplomacy case, to present the prospective contributions of these researches to Turkey’s soft power capacity from science diplomacy perspective.