Polar Science Diplomacy of Türkiye

Abstract

The concept of science diplomacy, which is located at the nexus of science and foreign policy, has been frequently on the agenda in recent years in parallel with the negative effects of global climate change owing to its potential to provide a common ground for bilateral and multilateral scientific cooperation between states. Since the conceptualization of science diplomacy has been predicated on the Antarctic Treaties Summit, the importance of historical perspective is emphasized in order to address the term more comprehensively in the current studies on its antecedents, dimensions, and application methods. On the other hand, when the scientific polar research of Türkiye is viewed from a historical perspective, it is seen that its interest in polar research dates back to the 2nd International Polar Year, which was organized with the participation of 34 states between 1932 and 1933. In this context, in addition to the official documents in the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye Directorate of State Archives, the archives of various institutions such as the Turkish State Meteorological Service and the General Directorate of Mapping were scanned by applying the historical research method to shed light on Türkiye's polar science diplomacy process from a holistic perspective. Therefore, this study aims to enhance the polar science diplomacy potential of Türkiye in which scientific polar research has been conducted as a successful case of public diplomacy. The momentum has been further increased following the breakthrough upon the establishment of the Polar Research Application and Research Center (PolReC) within the body of Istanbul Technical University (ITU) in 2017 and gained an institutional framework upon the establishment of the Institute (KARE) within the body of Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TUBITAK) in 2019.