Road to Soft Power Involves Managing Diversity at Home and Abroad

For Turkey to be admired by the countries in the Middle East and to constitute a legitimate source of inspiration, it should champion the cause of liberal pluralistic orders at home and abroad.
 
One particular advantage that Turkey appears to possess -while the entire Middle Eastern region has been going through revolutionary times- is its promise to become a functioning liberal-plural polity amidst a sea of authoritarian and repressive regimes. Any domestic or foreign policy course of action that might run the risk of derailing Turkey’s achievements in this regard should be avoided. That said, three particular developments warrant attention, two domestic and one foreign.
 
To begin with the domestic developments, the first one to mention is the growing tendency of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government to practice a social engineering program similar to the Kemalist project from the not quite-so-distant past – a program of transforming Turkish society in a hierarchical, top-down manner. Successful global powers need to prove that they are the guarantor of the principles of both “unity in diversity” and the peaceful coexistence of various communal groups with different moral codes. The litmus test of any would-be global power is whether it is up to the task of managing diversity in a harmonious way. The strict regulations on the selling and consumption of alcoholic beverages, as well as the particular discourse that the leading figures of the ruling party employed in their efforts to justify them, appear to have created doubts about the government’s ability to manage diversity.
 
The second development worth underlining is the apparent determination of the ruling party to transform Turkey’s current governmental structure to be in line with an a la Turca presidential system. This is alarming because the particular presidential system that AK Party members have in mind has nothing to do with the presidential system that exists in the United States. It seems that the underlying motivation of the AK Party-led initiatives in this regard is to help empower the executive branch of government against the legislative and judicial branches, as well as free the would-be president from the strict limitations of “checks and balances.” What is needed in Turkey is not a strong state embodied in the personality of the president, but a strong society thriving in an atmosphere of enlarging freedoms. Unless Turkey turns out to be such a polity at home, it can neither lead the transformation process in the greater Middle East nor prove to be a prospective member of the European Union. Turkey should not be defined as “Erdoğan’s Turkey,” similar to “Putin’s Russia.” This is not good.
 
Switching to the foreign development that appears to run the risk of curtailing Turkey’s appeal in being a source of inspiration, one should pay attention to the negative consequences of Turkish leaders adopting a “normative power” discourse abroad. At first sight, this appears to be more ethical than holding out to a realpolitik stance that prioritizes pure cost-benefit calculations and the determinism of geopolitical factors. However, at close inspection, it becomes evident that defining foreign policy preferences and actions in reference to norms and values might lead to inadvertent consequences. A nation that views its own values and norms as more superior to those of others -- and that strives to help transform others in the image of its own values -- might result in the adoption of illiberal foreign policy tools, most notably the use of brute force. The point is not that Turkey is moving away from its decade-long, soft power-oriented foreign policy. But the growing emphasis Turkey has put on its role in “leading, mastering and serving” the emerging regional order in the Middle East carries the risk of putting the nation in the same basket of countries which, in the past, had hegemonic aspirations. Turkey’s approach toward the Arab Spring in general and the crisis in Syria in particular, needs to be revisited with this in mind. Turkish rulers would do well to stop harboring regional aspirations and instead continue to invest in Turkey’s “power of attraction” that is based on its liberal-plural transformation and success in managing diversity at home and abroad.