THE RELATIONS BETWEEN PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND NATION BRANDS: AN INVESTIGATION OF NATION BRANDING IN TURKEY

In the last two decades, nation branding has become a discursive asset in politics due to the
increasing significance of public opinion in countries’ ability to compete in a globalised economic
and political setting. Due to the multiplicity of incentives to brand nations, this subject matter
has received extensive attention from both academics and practitioners. The first part of this
Working Paper delineates the extant theoretical and academic debates on the relations between
public diplomacy and nation brands, and sheds light on how nation brands are deployed to
influence foreign public opinions. The second part delineates the stages of nation branding
which illustrates the complexity of the nation branding process while drawing attention to the
importance of economic, political, and cultural assets. The third part of this Paper focuses on the
making of Brand Turkey as well as the recent projects and campaigns carried out in this scope.
Dr. Tecmen’s discussion reveals that there are both economic and political incentives to brand
Turkey, and the diversity of the campaign carried out by the government illustrates their
significance to formulating a unique, articulate, and competitive nation brand. More importantly,
this study demonstrates that innovative approaches to diplomacy, particularly in terms of stateto-
public communications, have become essential to ascertaining countries’ distinctive
characteristics derived from their national assets. This Working Paper partly derives from Dr.
Tecmen’s research for the CoHERE project, which is an EU-funded Horizon 2020 project titled
“Critical Heritages: performing and representing identities in Europe”.
AYHAN KAYA
Jean Monnet Chair of European Politics of Interculturalism
Director, European Institute
Istanbul Bilgi University