On February 22, 2016, Turkish Ministry for EU Affairs issued a statement on the comments of European Parliament Turkey Rapporteur Kati Piri. The rapporteur was harshly criticized and threatened with denial of official correspondence if she did not acknowledge PKK as a terrorist organization. Though I am not particularly interested in this aspect of Turkey-EU relations, one phrase that is used in the statement is of theoretical importance for IR; “perception management”.
The significance of the term pertains to the postmodernist approach in IR, which argue that representations of an event yield more political power than the event itself. Therefore, whenever the phrase “perception management” is used (you will see it a lot if you are interested in Turkish politics), it is safe to assume that regardless of the actual event, there is a political power play going on in which one party is striving to win over the opinion of a group of strategic importance.
The phrase “perception management” is a magical one in this sense. Blaming someone for resorting to the techniques of perception management becomes in itself a part of the perception management operation. It indicates a truth claim, an expertise on how and why something happened, more than often highlighting a particular (i.e.: favorable) aspect and discrediting the less acceptable parts. The mere utterance of the phrase makes some aspects real and other aspects un-real.
Emre Baran 