Turkey’s Soft Power Projection through its Turkey Scholarships Program

The definition and use of political power has begun to change both theoretically and practically. In the global political system, countries now compete not only with hard power elements but also with soft power tools (country image, public diplomacy, cultural institutes and student exchange programs). This paper concentrates on a government funded student scholarship program, Turkey Scholarships Program, with an eye towards evaluating its soft power potential. As a state policy, Turkey (and Ottoman State too) has organized some student exchange programs to establish enduring bridges of fraternity and friendship in different periods of its history. Hosting foreign students is desirable not only in the context of soft power projection, but also in commercial terms too. It is estimated that around 900,000 foreign students in the US during the 2015/2016 academic year contributed US national economy with $ 33 billion and 450,000 foreign students contributed to 25.8 billion pounds to the UK economy. As of 2018, there are approximately 115,000 foreign students at Turkey’s higher education institutions, and it is estimated that those students’ contribution to the national economy might be around 4 billion dollars. As of 2012, China hosts about 250,000 foreign students and aims to increase the number of international students to half a million by 2020. Brazil, Russia, India, Japan, and South Korea among others offer attractive opportunities for talented foreign students to their national universities. The main objective of this long-term project is to examine in a comprehensive way the extent to which the foreign students, in particular those with Turkey Scholarships, studying at the higher education institutions of our country contribute to the soft power capacity of Turkey. When looking at the literature, the number of studies analyzed in the context of political science discipline is extremely limited. In the few studies available, primary data and field studies are absent or very rare. Therefore, this project will collect primary data to contribute to the empirical literature on soft power and higher education nexus. Joseph Nye introduces 3 major legs of the soft power capacity: 1-) the culture of the country, 2-) political values, 3-) foreign policy actions. Accordingly, this project entails in-depth interviews along with a variety of questions to be answered by a sample of Turkey Scholarship students. Additionally, data will be gathered through focus groups and expert opinions to complement in-depth interviews with students.