Women in Diplomacy in Türkiye: Prospects for a Gender Turn

Abstract

Women in diplomacy serve the national interests of security and prosperity where the hard power essence of foreign policy objectives has prevailed, i.e., in post-conflict reconstruction, in transitions from conflict to stability and in the fields of soft power promotion including cultural transitions, and civil society and business partnerships. Borrowing from Feminist diplomacy theories, this paper will first offer an outlook on the role of women represented in international affairs and diplomacy, and the setting of the foreign policy agenda in Türkiye over the past two decades. In recent decades, the number of women diplomats serving in Türkiye’s foreign missions around the world has increased remarkably. This paper will examine the patterns of this ‘gender turn’ in diplomacy, measuring the perceptions of women in diplomacy. It will also examine the prospects for more inclusive diplomacy with greater participation and active involvement of women in foreign services, the challenges to female leadership roles in international affairs and the prospects for the success of women’s leadership for a change of state in international affairs. In-depth interviews were carried out with a sample of 16 female diplomats who serve at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or at other diplomatic missions at varying levels of hierarchy. By presenting and analyzing these interviews, this paper will explore the extent to which women in diplomacy have a transformative power in the male-dominated, power-centric foreign policy of a state, and thus if there is truly a gender turn occurring in Turkish diplomacy.