Ahmet Turan

Conference diplomacy is one of the most important phenomena in the history of modern international relations. This form of diplomacy, long overshadowed by the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815), has been regarded as a key platform for post-war order-building. However, with the changing world order in the 21st century, there have been fundamental changes in conference diplomacy. Conferences have come to the forefront not only in post-war periods but also in times of peace as a medium for the search for solutions to regional and global problems. In this context, the Antalya Diplomacy Forum (ADF), organized under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Türkiye, and the Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), organized under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, are prominent examples of conference diplomacy. This study aims to compare these two conference diplomacy channels. To this end, comparative analysis is used in this study. Accordingly, Paul Meerts’ classification is used to compare the objectives, activities, formats, participation levels, and agenda-setting capacity of both conference series. In this context, the study examines which mechanism is more effective based on online and periodical publications from both conferences.