Culture as a tool in public diplomacy; A study of Turkey's public diplomacy potential

Changing structure of societies, political systems and communication channels also caused an alterationin the concept of diplomacy, the non-war approach of states, and resulted as obtaining new tools in the concept. Shaping international relations over centuries, diplomacy also changed over centuries after events took place in the world agenda and created the idea of public diplomacy, which became a common diplomatic concept among states. After the changes took place in the nature of the power, the key element in the international relations, public diplmacy is shaped under the fundamentals of the soft power, and it defines the process of creating a positive perception through temptation and persuasion towards the state using public diplomacy, as a result of established relations. This new understanding of diplomacy, based on temptation and persuasion, uses a number of tools to accomplish this process. The most important of these tools is culture. The use of culture in diplomacy, which is an important source of soft power, provides close relations between societies and creates lasting relations through cultural interaction. Turkey has established the Yunus Emre Institute to apply cultural diplomacy and to be an important actor in the field. In this study, Turkey's dominant cultural diplomacy practitioner Yunus Emre Institute's cultural activities were analysed through content analysis in the axis of public diplomacy, a tool of cultural diplomacy; and Turkey's cultural diplomacy studies were evaluated related to the literature and Turkish cultural diplomacy policies and various suggestions were made in "Turkish Cultural Diplomacy Potential".