About – PSA Turkish Politics Specialist Group

The Turkish Politics Specialist Group brings together scholars, researchers and academics interested in studying or hearing about Turkish politics.
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The group holds workshops, seminars, panels and networking opportunities, both as PSA Annual Conference and through other events throughout the year. Although only recently established, the Turkish Politics Specialist Group builds on the already existing network of experts within the PSA and includes researchers at all stages of their career whose interests cover the historical and contemporary politics of Turkey, broadly defined. We are committed to engaging with cutting-edge empirical and theoretical research that enlightens our understanding of Turkey.

Key areas of interest include, but are not limited to, democratisation and autocratisation, electoral politics, institutional change, the media, civil society, security and conflict, and foreign policy. It is also one of the missions of the group to place Turkey in comparative perspective both within its neighbourhood and beyond. Through our events and up-to-date blog posts, we will facilitate and expand opportunities for network building and collaborative research.

You can find our group on the “Specialist Groups” section of the Political Studies Association website. You can also learn about the types of membership that are available, along with the other rights and subscriptions that comes with becoming a member.

To join the group please Access here, follow us on twitter , or email us for further information.

Digdem Soyaltin Colella

Digdem Soyaltin-Colella is the co-convenor and chair of the PSA Turkish Politics Specialist Group. She works as an Assistant Professor at the University of Aberdeen, UK. She is also a member of the global strategy reference group of Transparency International Berlin. She received her Ph.D. degree in Political Science at Freie Universität Berlin and worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies (SUITS). She holds MSc. in European Affairs from Lund University and M.Phil in Political Science from Central European University. Her research concentrates on the politics of corruption, mechanisms of state capture and regime survival, autocratic bureaucracies & illiberal governance, and Southeast European and Turkish politics. Email: digdem.soyaltin@abdn.ac.uk

Buğra Güngör

Buğra Güngör is the co-convenor and chair of the PSA Turkish Politics Specialist Group. He completed his Ph.D. in International Relations and Political Science at the Geneva Graduate Institute. He also holds a master’s degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from Sabanci University and a bachelor’s in Philosophy, together with a minor degree certificate in Political Science, awarded by Bilkent University. In addition, he has extensive experience with managing development and humanitarian projects commissioned by various UN agencies, IOs, and INGOs in Switzerland and Turkey. Dr. Güngör’s research interests include conflict processes, soft power, public diplomacy, foreign policy analysis, and Turkish foreign policy.

Begum Zorlu

Begüm Zorlu is the communications officer of the PSA Turkish Politics Specialist Group. She is a Visiting Lecturer in the department of International Politics at City, University of London. She recently completed an ESRC SeNSS Postdoctoral Fellowship examining Global South populism and the contestation of the international order. Her research centres on populist authoritarianism, democratic backsliding and opposition contention, examined comparatively across Turkey and Venezuela, alongside work on securitisation theory and drone diplomacy. Begüm is also a content producer at the Equality-Justice-Woman Platform, a feminist civil society initiative based in Turkey and both her journalistic and academic work can be seen at begumzorlu.com

Candaş Ayan

Candaş Ayan is the International Relations Officer of the PSA Turkish Politics Specialist Group. He received his M.Sc. degree in Political Science from Middle East Technical University (METU) in 2020, and his Ph.D. degree in Political Science from Hacettepe University in 2026, where part of his doctoral research was conducted at the University of Glasgow. He is currently a Dr. Research Assistant at Hacettepe University (Ankara, Turkey). Candaş’s broader research and teaching interests lie in the areas of securitization theory, critical security studies and citizenship, comparative politics of authoritarian populism, gender and women’s movements, disinformation, and qualitative methods with a focus on discourse analysis. His doctoral research compares the securitization of women’s movements in Turkey and India under authoritarian-populist rule.

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