Assessment of Turkish commercial diplomacy activities within the framework of commercial liberalism theory

Recent studies have associated the relationship between trade, peace and cooperation to the political regimes of countries. These studies have revealed that democratic regimes are more willing to protect the gains of trade than authoritarian regimes. In this thesis, based on these academic studies, Türkiye's political and commercial relations with the United States of America, Germany, China, France, the Netherlands, Iran, Israel, Egypt, the Russian Federation and Saudi Arabia between 1999-2019 have been examined. Beside, how the political crises that emerged in the aforementioned period affected the commercial relations and the commercial diplomacy activities carried out in the field in order to develop commercial relations has been discussed. Research carried out within the scope of this thesis has revealed that the crises experienced by Türkiye with democratic countries do not have a negative effect on trade and trade diplomacy activities, but the crises with authoritarian countries negatively affect both trade and trade diplomacy activities. The determinations and evaluations in the study were created by examining foreign trade figures, investments and person movements and were confirmed through interviews with trade diplomats working in the countries during crisis periods.