Place Branding as an instrument of soft power: Turkish and Colombian examples

The professor Joseph Nye coined the term "soft power" in 1990 to explain how modern states can use their attractiveness and persuasion to become relevant on the international arena using their natural and unique assets to highlight on the competitive free market. Soft Power is a relatively new and abstract concept, nonetheless, on its core its new face of power. To fully take advantage of this new face of power the discipline of Country Branding has been developed, to fully harvest the power of attraction of the countries and presented to the world the most simple and clear way. The way countries approach to this new discipline vary from country to country. This thesis has taken a sample of two countries – Colombia and Turkey- Countries with very different background, cultures, and historical problems, in order to analyze the development of both countries strategies over time and clearly see the different approaches that have been taken. To do so, this research project has taken foot on Public Diplomacy theory, public administration, and International relations theories in order to understand Country Branding as an interdisciplinary field of studies, and show that if its well implemented is not a new face of propaganda. Keywords: Country Brand, Nation Brand, Place Brand, Public Diplomacy, Turkey, Colombia, Soft Power, Liberalism, Neoliberalism, and International Relations