The city diplomacy as an example of public diplomacy: Example of Eskişehir Metropolitan Municipality

With the rapid development of technology and the increase in its use, diplomacy and public diplomacy activities have emerged as the provision of communication among the states and from state to the public, and the protection of their interests. Technological developments have accelerated the formation process of the global world, and for this reason, diplomatic relations have begun to be carried out between the cities as well as the states. Within this process, it is described as city diplomacy that cities organize activities to expand the recognition of the country in the international arena and to ensure its interests. City diplomacy is conducted by local administrations. The municipalities of other countries and the Turkish municipalities are working to expand their international relations. This study evaluates the municipal activities with the countries, not within the context of cities. The purpose of this study is to examine the activities carried out by the Eskişehir Metropolitan Municipality in cultural and art activities, tourism, education programs, sports competitions, political communications and town-twinning relations, and economic cooperation in the context of public diplomacy and city diplomacy which is its subheading. It was adopted to make a literature review for the theoretical part of the research, and for the application part, the news published on the website of the Eskişehir Metropolitan Municipality was subjected to qualitative content analysis. The boundedness of the research was determined as the municipal activities that were carried out in 2011, 2015, and 2019 on the website of the Eskişehir Metropolitan Municipality within the framework of public diplomacy. In accordance with the results obtained from the qualitative content analysis of Eskişehir Metropolitan Municipality activities, it is understood that it has conducted crucial studies in the fields of public diplomacy and city diplomacy.