A Content Analysis of the AKP's “Honorable” Foreign Policy Discourse: The Nexus of Domestic–International Politics

Abstract

This article examines political leaders' framing strategies during times of public diplomacy crisis. By focusing on the nexus of domestic–international politics, it argues that during public diplomacy crises, policy-makers would like to utilize their speech acts on foreign policy issues to manage expectations of domestic public opinion. This paper's main contention is to demonstrate that the head of AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) government, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has instrumentalized his foreign policy speeches with the label of “honorable” to legitimize AKP's practices at the domestic level.

Acknowledgements

The early version of this paper was presented in Turkish ISA sponsored panel at Annual ISA Convention, San Francisco, 2013. The authors would like to thank Assoc. Prof. Lerna Yanık and Asst. Prof. Murat Yesiltas for their recommendations on the draft version.

Notes on Contributors

Ugur Cevdet Panayirci is currently the chair of the Department of Public Relations and Advertising at Okan University. He earned his PhD (2009) in Advertising from Marmara University (Istanbul, Turkey) specializing in advertising discourse and postmodernism. His research interests are in the areas of communication theories and media discourse, political communication, and public opinion.

Emre Iseri is a faculty member in the Department of International Relations at Yaşar University. He earned his PhD (2008) in International Relations from Keele University (Staffs, UK). His areas of research include International Politics, Energy Security, Euro-Asian Politics, and Turkish Foreign Policy. He is also an associate member in the editorial board of the Journal of Global Faultlines. Email: [email protected]

Notes

1. Originally, Putnam used the two-level game metaphor to examine diplomacy among national governments and the challenge they face in striking a balance between expectations at the international level and pressure arising domestically. For the application of Putnam's metaphor in communications studies, see Lindholm and Olsson, “Crisis Communication as a Multilevel Game,” 254–71.

2. Tuch, Communicating with the World.

3. See Gilboa, “Public Diplomacy,” 715–47; Melissen, The New Public Diplomacy; Potter, “Canada and the New Public Diplomacy”; Wang, “Managing National Reputation,” 91–6.

4. See Almond, The American People; Powlick and Katz, “Defining the American Public Opinion;” Foyle, Counting the Public In; Knecht and Weatherford, “Public Opinion and Foreign Policy,” 705–27.

5. See Bilgin, “Foreign Policy Orientation,” 407–21; Öniş and Yılmaz, “Between Europeanization and Euro-Asianism,” 7–24; Oktav (ed.), Turkey in the 21st Century; Kardaş, “Turkey: Redrawing the Middle East,”115–36; Meral and Paris, “Decoding Turkish Foreign Policy,” 75–86; Bilgin and Bilgiç, “Turkey's ‘New’ Foreign Policy,” 173–95; Fidan, “A Work in Progress,” 91–6.

6. Ulgen, “A Transformed Turkey,” 41–50; Cornell et al., “Dealing with the Rising Power,” 285–6.

7. Aras and Fidan, “Turkey and Eurasia,” 195–217.

8. Davutoglu, “Turkey's Zero-Problems.”

9. See Tugal, Passive Revolution; Polat, “Regime Change”; Öniş, “Sharing Power,” 103–22.

10. See Maoz. “Framing the National Interest,” 77–110; Garrison, “Framing Foreign Policy,” 775–807; Mintz and Redd, “Framing Effects,” 193–23; Stern, “Crisis Studies and Foreign Policy Analysis,” 155–202; Dyson, “Personality and Foreign Policy,” 289–306; Dyson and Preston, “Individual Characteristics,” 265–88; Foster and Keller, “Leaders’ Cognitive Complexity, Distrust, and the Diversionary Use of Force.”

11. As Yavuz asserts, Few prime ministers have had greater impact on Turkish political life than Erdoğan … He has been dominant in both the domestic and the foreign policy of Turkey. In many ways, it seems that there is no AKP or related movement but rather the hegemony and dominance of Erdoğan. (Yavuz, Secularism and Muslim, 122 and 129) Therefore, it is not the minister of foreign affairs, Ahmet Davutoğlu, but Tayyip Erdoğan that researchers need to put their focus on while analyzing Turkish politics.

12. According to the analyses of Freedomhouse and The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Turkey for all of its advances made as regards a number of legal issues is still caught between democratic improvement and resistance to reform. The Freedomhouse report concludes that reforms under Erdoğan's government are still far from improving the democratic maturity of the Turkish state to the level of “partly free countries” and is underpinned by a “ … constitution [that] fundamentally lacks the inclusiveness, the clearly defined rights, and the limitations on state power that are crucial for democracy in a multicultural society.” EIU's report coins a different, though similar, term, “hybrid,” to label the democratic progress of Turkey. In addition to acknowledging that there are free elections, the report notes that Turkey must take major steps to become a fully “free” country. The report ranks democracy in Turkey as being less developed than in Ghana and Albania, and slightly above Mozambique and Bangladesh. For details see Freedom House, “Freedom in the World”; The Economist Intelligence Unit “Democracy Index 2010.”

13. Yanık, “Foreign Policy,” 213–27.

14. Kalaycıoğlu, “Public Choice and Foreign Affairs,” 57–81.

15. Yanık, “Foreign Policy,” 214–15.

16. Campbell, Writing Security.

17. Gusten,“Mandate for a New Turkish Era.”

18. German Marshall Fund 2012 Transatlantic survey found out that the lowest favorability of the USA was shown in Turkey (34 percent). Moreover, the report put that only 38 percent of Turkish public believes that American-led NATO remains essential to Turkey's security and national interests. This marks the lowest level of public support. For details see German Marshall Fund, “GMF Transatlantic Trends 2012.” For an academic account on the reasons of the highest level of NATO opposition in Turkey, see Canan-Sokullu, “Türk Kamuoyunda,” 151–82. For anti-American perceptions in Turkey, see Sadık, American Image in Turkey; Güney, “Anti-Americanism in Turkey,” 471–87; Grigoriadis, “Friends No More?” 51–66; Türkmen, “Anti-Americanism as a Default Ideology,” 329–45.

19. Mosca, The Ruling Class, 50.

20. Rosenau, National Leadership and Foreign Policy, 6.

21. Sönmezoğlu, Uluslararası Politika, 629.

22. Morgenthau, Politics.

23. Henry, “News as Entertainment,” 134.

24. Entman, “Framing,” 51–8.

25. McQuail, Mass Communication.

26. Goffman, Frame Analysis.

27. Scheufele, “Framing as a Theory,” 103–22.

28. Kinder and Sanders, “Mimicking Political Debate,” 73–103.

29. The Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) report on the Turkish press presents the current situation in Turkey as one of the world's largest anti-press campaigns in recent history. As of August 2012, there were 76 journalist imprisoned, surpassing even the next most repressive nations, including Iran, Eritrea, and China. For details see “Turkey's Press Freedom Crises.”

30. Heper, The State Tradition.

31. This paper draws on Max Weber's conceptualizations of the charismatic leader. In his classification of political leadership, he describes the charismatic leader as an actor legitimizing his power through exceptional personal qualities and inspiring loyalty and obedience in followers. See Toteff, “Max Weber's Charisma,” 189–204.

32. Görener and Ucal, “The Personality and Leadership,” 357–81. See also Kardaş, “Erdoğan's Way.”

33. For instance, The Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) polls indicated that two-thirds of the Turkish public support the Erdoğan-led AKP's foreign policy. For details see Akgün et al., Türkiye'de Dış Politika.

34. Görener and Ucal, “The Personality and Leadership,” 357–81.

35. See Moore, “Politics Enters Science”; Al-Rikabi, “Erdoğan's Turkey”; Righter, “Erdoğan 1,” 7; Hauff, “Democracy,” 403. For a relatively recent academic account, Cengiz, “Turkish Politics,” 565–74.

36. Taydaş and Özdamar, “A Divided Government,” 233–6.

37. CNN Wire Staff, “Missile Defense Shield.”

38. Kardaş, “Turkey's ‘Moral Politics’”; Özcan, “Turkey as a NATO Partner,” 105–12.

39. Head, “Libya: Turkey's Troubles.”

40. Semetko and Valkenburg, “Framing European Politics,” 93–109.

41. Schuck and Vreese, “Between Risk and Opportunity,” 5–32.

42. Brewer, “National Interest Frames,” 89–102.

43. Schuck and de Vreese (2008) in broad terms define the positive frame as a frame that is promoting a positive outcome and a negative frame as a frame that is promoting a negative outcome. They (Schuck and de Vreese, “Between Risk and Opportunity”) also contended that they have an effect on people's judgments. Shen (2004) found that media frames that are consistent with individual schemas tend to have a stronger impact on the audience. Entman (2004, 6) posits that culturally congruent news frames are most influential on public opinion, and that they tend to employ “words and images highly salient in the culture, which is to say noticeable, understandable and emotionally charged.” While we acknowledge that measuring public opinion would provide a sound basis for our work, relying on the previous body of work focused on effects and perception of frames we believe that it is consistent for us to expect that “positive” frames will be received favorably and “negative” frames will be received disfavorably by public.

44. Brewer, “National Interest Frames,” 89–102.

45. Migdalovitz, Iraq: Turkey, the Deployment of U.S. Forces.

46. Entman, “Framing,” 51–8.

47. Gümüşçü, “Turkey's Reactions.”

48. Çetin, “NATO'nun.”

49. See Hürriyet, March 20, 2011.

50. See Hürriyet, September 21, 2011.

51. Retrieved from http://www.economy.gov.tr/index.cfm?sayfa=countriesandregions&country=LY&region=0.

52. For more information see http://www.economy.gov.tr/index.cfm?sayfa=countriesandregions&country=LY&region=0.

53. According to TESEV's poll results regarding Turkish public opinion on the Iranian nuclear program, only 38 percent of the Turkish public is against Iran's “civilian nuclear program” and most of them support Ankara's position on Tehran. In addition, 35 percent regarded Iran as a threat to security in the Middle East against an opposing 53 percent. For details see Akgün et al. Türkiye'de Dış Politika.

54. Hatipoğlu and Luetgert, “Turkish Political Parties,” 45.

55. Akgün et al., Türkiye'de Dış Politika.

56. Yanık, “Constructing Turkish ‘Exceptionalism,’” 80–9.

57. Melissen, The New Public Diplomacy; Potter, “Canada and the New Public Diplomacy.”