Cultural diplomacy activities of yunus emre institutes in turkish public diplomacy: examples of Pakistan, Malaysia, Serbia and Macedonia

The main purpose of this study is to examine the cultural diplomacy activity, which is a sub-discipline of Turkish public diplomacy. Public and cultural diplomacy activities, which are increasingly taking place in Turkish foreign policy, have been examined through an institution, supported by field data. Four countries close and far away from Turkey were selected from Yunus Emre Institutes operating in tens of countries, and a survey study was conducted by directly obtaining data from students studying in these countries. The data obtained from the questionnaires were subjected to various analyzes by passing validity and reliability tests. As a result of these analyzes, the theses put forward in the hypotheses were tested. According to these tests, Turkey's carrying out cultural diplomacy activities in different geographies creates positive perceptions in favor of Turkey. It is understood from the survey results that Yunus Emre Enstitüsü not only teaches Turkish in the countries where it operates, but also reduces negative perceptions towards Turkey, but also increases interest, relevance and curiosity towards Turkey. This thesis is a first for the doctoral level, since it is the data obtained directly from the field, and also because it reaches distant geographies. With this study, it has been tried to contribute both theoretically and practically to the cultural diplomacy literature. Keywords: Cultural Diplomacy, International Relations, Yunus Emre Institutes