Another aspect of the Ottoman legacy is that diplomatic and foreign policy issues need to be dealt with secretly and behind closed doors. Open discussion of such issues before the public is generally seen as risky. Diplomatic issues require expertise. For a long time, only the state elites nested in bureaucracy were assumed to have possessed this expertise. The participation of civil society and non-state actors in the formulation of Turkey’s foreign policy interests has been quite limited compared to liberal democratic countries in the West. Diplomacy has always been the privilege of state elites in Turkey. It is during the process of Europeanization and democratization that civil society has finally begun to acquire an important role in Turkish diplomacy. It is now the case that both elected politicians are more knowledgeable than before about foreign policy and diplomatic issues and think tanks have mushroomed as institutional platforms offering expert-help to decision makers.