Vaccine Diplomacy as a Form of Soft Power: The Successful Case of Turkiye.

• Author: Mamishova, Narmina
• Position: ARTICLE

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has become the 5th documented one since the 1918 Spanish flu, the most severe influenza outbreak of the 20th century. First discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, the coronavirus has rapidly spread worldwide and evolved among the human population. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of late May 2022, there have been 524,878,064 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 6,283,119 deaths. (1) As a global response, vaccinating the world against this disease has led to the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history. The vaccine race involved scientists around the world working faster than ever before to develop a remedy against the spread of the cruel disease. It may have not redrawn the geopolitical map, but it has at the very least sharpened the available trends, which remain subject to extensive academic research. Studies have addressed the negative trends for the European Union's (EU) and the U.S. credibility in the Western Balkans amid the assertive vaccine diplomacy of Beijing and Moscow in the region. (2) Some papers have analyzed the geopolitical use of vaccines by Russia while it seeks to improve the country's image and strengthen its stakes. (3) Meanwhile, others have analyzed the competing COVID-19 practices of the U.S. and China to a mass further clout in Latin America and the Caribbean. (4) One thing is clear: the coronavirus pandemic has tested the global distribution of power and foreign policies of big players, in particular.

Turkiye--a well-established regional actor with beyond-regional ambitionshas joined the post-COVID-19 geopolitical rivalry. First, Ankara's vaccine diplomacy has echoed its autonomous foreign policy strategy, which isn't based on the influence of Western allies or Eastern partners. Four vaccines have been officially approved for use in Turkiye: Comirnaty (Pfizer/BioNTech, U.S./Germany), CoronaVac (Sinovac, China), Sputnik V (Gamaleya Institute, Russia), and also Turkovac--the first domestically produced option. Though the Comirnaty and CoronaVac vaccine deals have not raised questions about Turkiye's Euro-Atlantic commitments, Ankara's approval of emergency use of Sputnik V and discussions on the possible joint production of the Russian coronavirus vaccine in Turkiye have sparked debate over the loyalty of the Erdogan Administration regarding the consolidated NATO-EU coronavirus response. Second, the pandemic has offered Turkiye an unprecedented opportunity to shore up its international influence by providing the world with much-needed public health goods, including its SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, which has been officially approved for local use. The resounding supplies of vaccines to friendly countries in urgent need and other forms of medical aid provided to 160 countries and 12 international organizations worldwide have become another pillar of Ankara's soft power.

The objective of this study is to apply the soft power theoretical framework to explore the dynamics of Turkiye's COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy. By employing the soft power concept, introduced by Joseph Nye in the late 1980s to explain the ability of a state to persuade others to do what it wants without force or coercion, this paper focuses on the importance of vaccine diplomacy in understanding the grand foreign policy strategy of Ankara under the presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The author's insights into Turkiye's self-positioning as a regional power with global ambitions, which is particularly exemplified in the Erdogan-lobbied the 'world is bigger than five' idea, are explored. The research design is based on qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as discourse analysis as the core methodologies. Within the qualitative content analysis, the relevant recorded human communications are studied. The primary data sources include manuscripts, research articles, news items in local and foreign media outlets, and think tank reports. Both manifest and latent content analysis is employed to make an overall assessment of the particular social evidence. For the quantitative analysis, the official government web portals and trusted open-source statistical databases are referred to. To obtain indicators of President Erdogan's perceptions and attitudes toward the role of Turkiye in the 21st century geopolitical landscape, transcripts of his official statements and speeches are also analyzed.

The concept of soft power addresses the ability of states to attract and persuade. Whereas hard power, the ability to coerce, grows out of a country's military or economic might (which would in no way be diminished in the case of Turkiye), soft power arises from the attractiveness of a nation's culture, political ideals, and policies. Although force may sometimes play a role, according to Joseph S. Nye, Jr., (5) traditional instruments of power are rarely sufficient to deal with the new dilemmas of politics, and new power resources sometimes prove more relevant. With this in mind, soft cooperative power is just as important as hard command power. If a state can make its power seem legitimate in the eyes of others, it will encounter less resistance to its wishes. If its culture and ideology are attractive, others will more willingly follow. If it can establish international norms consistent with its society, it is less likely to have to change. If it can support institutions that make other states want to channel or limit their activities in ways the dominant state prefers, it may be spared the costly exercise of utilizing coercive or hard power. In general, power is becoming less transferable, less coercive, and less tangible. Moreover, cooperation would often be needed for small, weak states that are not fully capable of managing their domestic problems, including health issues like the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not surprising that vaccine diplomacy is being labeled a 'new chapter in the story of soft power' (6) or even an 'empathetic soft power.' (7) Like other influential nations, Turkiye has also recognized the opportunity to expand the horizons of its geopolitical influence amid the ongoing pandemic.

Turkiye's donations of home-grown or imported vaccines to specific regions and countries with less access have been in line with the emergence of the COVID-19 vaccines as a new public diplomacy instrument. Positioning itself as a regional strongman with extra-regional resolve, Turkiye also joined the intriguing vaccine diplomacy race led mainly by China, India, Russia, and the U.S. The destinations of vaccine donations delivered by the country have been consistent with Ankara's public diplomacy efforts, including developmental aid and trade-boosting activities. These activities have particularly focused on Africa and to a lesser extent the Balkans and brotherly Turkic nations. This article aims to provide insight into the 'supplementary function' of the pro bono vaccine supplies to target recipients in Turkiye's wider soft power agenda. The agenda echoes the officially declared enterprising and humanitarian foreign policy aimed at protecting the interests of the Turkish people in an unstable regional and global environment, as well as creating conditions for the sustainable peace, development, and prosperity of neighboring states and beyond. In addition, the research looks implicitly at the 'controversial relationship' of the country with the Russian Sputnik V vaccine deliveries as a manifestation of the autonomous foreign policy strategy the Turkish government has been pursuing since the first success in the parliamentary elections of the Erdogan-led Justice and Development Party (AK Party) back in 2002 and following his ascendance as the Prime Minister and subsequently as the President.

COVID-19 Pandemic and Turkiye's Vaccine Policies

Turkiye has secured jabs from different suppliers with 147,416,299 doses administered in the 85-million-populous nation so far, according to the Turkish Ministry of Health. (8) The report of 'Our World in Data,' a scientific online publication, says as of late-May 2022 this makes up 53.1 million fully vaccinated citizens or 62.9 percent of the total population. (9) After the pandemic unfolded across the world, Chinese Sinovac's CoronaVac was the 'first-runner' in the country's vaccination campaign, which started in mid-January 2021. (10) Initially, in late November 2020, Turkiye had signed a deal with China to buy 50 million doses of CoronaVac, which was soon duplicated in a +50mln request. (11) The country was among the very first to purchase the Chinese-produced vaccine: When the deal was made, CoronaVac had not yet been approved anywhere, even in China. (12) In the spring of 2021, Turkiye started administering German-made Pfizer/BioNTech's coronavirus shots with a total supply of up to 5 million doses, thus introducing a second vaccine in the fight against COVID-19 amid record highs of new cases. (13) Finally, in late April 2021 Turkiye agreed with Russia on the delivery of 50 million doses of Gamaleya's Sputnik V. (14) In addition, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the sovereign wealth fund responsible for promoting the Russian vaccine abroad, said Turkish pharmaceutical firms were likely to produce Sputnik V at their plants, in another sign of long-visible Russian cooperation with NATO-member Turkiye.

Turkiye's Sputnik V move aligns with Ankara's foreign and security policy since the ascendance of Erdogan. The vaccine deal with Russia was in line with Turkiye's complex (but significant) ties with Moscow, including the purchase of Russian S-400 missile defense systems, which was against the wishes of Ankara's NATO allies; President Erdogan's contentious stance on his Belarusian counterpart Oleksandr Lukashenko, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin; Ankara's reluctance to join Western sanctions against the Kremlin in response to the protracted aggression against Ukraine; coordinated...