100 YEARS OF VISITS is a two-year TÜBİTAK-funded project (124R138) that investigates the high-level leader visits of Türkiye. It primarily aims to create a comprehensive dataset covering all foreign visits made by Turkish leaders—presidents, prime ministers, and foreign ministers—between 1923 and 2023, as well as visits to Türkiye by foreign high-level leaders such as kings, presidents, prime ministers, and foreign ministers. Through this dataset, the project seeks to provide empirical support for existing assumptions about Turkish foreign policy, revise these assumptions where necessary, or develop and test new hypotheses.

In this context, the project aspires to make three key contributions—two scholarly and one practical. First, it aims to establish a new dataset on high-level visits, which will be accessible to other researchers and experts. Second, it seeks to contribute to the academic literature on Turkish foreign policy by empirically reassessing key arguments using this dataset. Third, it aims to provide foreign policy practitioners with scientifically grounded insights into the functions and outcomes of foreign visits. The project’s success will be measured by three main outputs: a publicly available dataset, published academic studies, and reports submitted to relevant government institutions.

Category: 3005 – Innovative Solutions Research Projects Support Program in Social Sciences and Humanities

Project Coordinator: Ali Balcı

Project Fund: 897.000 TL

Students: 5 Undergraduates (8 months each), 1 Master (18 months), and 1 PhD (12 months)

Project Outcomes

Ali Balcı, “‘Paşam, Sizi memnun edecek havadislerim var!’: Tevfik Rüştü Aras’ın 1929 Yurt Dışı Ziyaret(ler)i”, Toplumsal Tarih, Sayı: 373, Şubat 2025: 22-27.