TIKA's Soft Power: Nation Branding in Turkish Foreign Policy

Abstract

Over the past fifteen years, nation branding has become a popular subject of study, and a formative enterprise in the creation of national character. The aim of nation branding is to create positive feelings in people's minds toward the economic, political, social and geographical conditions of a nation. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of TIKA in the context of Turkey's nation branding in general, with special attention to the Syrian refugee crisis. Further, this paper aims to explain the effects of the Turkish humanitarian assistance process on the Syrian people who live in Turkey as refugees, and to bring a nation branding perspective to how and why nations pay attention to public diplomacy in their attempts to keep their national image strong.