Welcome to My Home Page!

I am a Professor and the Chair of Contemporary Turkish Studies at the European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Prior to joining LSE, I was a Senior Lecturer of Politics and International Relations at Aston University and an Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at Istanbul Bilgi University. I also held a visiting position at St Antony's College, Oxford University.

Currently, I serve as the co-convenor and chair of the Political Studies Association (PSA) Turkish Politics Specialist Group and a council member of the British Association of Turkish Area Studies (BATAS).

After completing my PhD in politics and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia, I have worked on regime change and consolidation, democratization, civil-military relations and coups d’état. I published numerous articles on these subjects, covering Turkish, Greek and other Southern European countries from a comparative perspective in edited volumes and peer-reviewed journals.

My book, Between Military Rule and Democracy: Regime Consolidation in Greece, Turkey, and Beyond published by the University of Michigan Press (2017), asks how authoritarian and democratic regimes originate in countries where the military is a significant political actor. The book also deals with the question of why the armed forces sometimes intervene in politics via short-lived coup d’états, at other times establish or support longer-term authoritarian regimes, and in some cases come under the democratic control of the civilians. To find answers, I examine six episodes of authoritarianism, six periods of democracy, and twelve short-lived coups with various degrees of success in Greece, Turkey, Thailand, and Egypt. Basing my findings on more than 150 interviews with Greek and Turkish elites, I offer a detailed analysis of both countries from the interwar period to the recent regime crises and apply the theory derived from these cases to the contemporary military interventions in Thailand and Egypt.

For more information on the book, you can watch these videos:

You can also find information on my Field Research Experience that formed the basis of the book on this website.

Aside from Between Military Rule and Democracy, I am also the author of a Turkish-language short book on the changes in Turkish civil-military relations in the first decade of the 2000s. You can find a list of my other publications and download some of my articles by following the Publications link of this website. My research and publications have been recognized by the Science Academy in 2016 with a Young Scientist Award (BAGEP) given to promising Turkish scientists.

I am currently also interested in Turkey-UK Relations. This project was initially supported by the British Institute at Ankara. It has led me to explore Turkish perceptions of the West and to examine the links between emotions, memory and international relations that form the basis of current bilateral relations. You can find more information on this project in the Projects & Field Research page.

If you want to contact me, please follow the link in the left column.

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