The use of foreign aid and foreign debt as a power tool: From Ottoman State to today Turkey's borrowing adventure

Western Europe showed a technical and economical development after the Renaissance - Reform period. The process, which resulted in an excess of capital accumulation compared to the rest of the world, was influential in the formation of capitalism. In order to the wealth to be used as a means of power, the necessity of poor countries to borrow or to gain a positive view of borrowing has become an important subject. Liberal philosophy has provided it. And at the same time, the spread of free market economics and the democratic forms of governance that will provide it has opened the way for aid debt / credit relations to be used as a power. This thesis relates the concept of soft power with foreign aids, the concept of hard power with external debts, and the concept of intelligent power with both foreign aids and external debts. The process of losing their economic independence of the states through the soft, hard and intelligent forces has been analyzed in a period extending from the Ottoman period to today. The result of the study is that the nature of debts used as a source of foreign financing by developing countries and external aid and debt play an important role in the economic and political independence of countries. However, although the nature of the debts used is important, it is also a reality that foreign aid and debt are used by developed countries as a means of power. These aid and debts serve the interests of developed countries.