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.

yaprak gursoy

Dr Yaprak Gürsoy is the co-convenor and chair of the PSA Turkish Politics Specialist Group. She is a Professor and the Chair of Contemporary Turkish Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Prior to her current posts, she was a Senior Lecturer at Aston University and an Associate Professor at Istanbul Bilgi University. Dr Gürsoy works on Turkish domestic politics and foreign policy from a comparative perspective. She is the author of Between Military Rule and Democracy: Regime Consolidation in Greece, Turkey, and Beyond (University of Michigan Press, 2017) and The Transformation of Civil-Military Relations in Turkey (Istanbul Bilgi University Press, in Turkish). Dr Gürsoy’s complete academic profile can be found on her personal website www.yaprakgursoy.com and she can be reached at y.gursoy@lse.ac.uk

mATTHEW WHITING

Dr Matthew Whiting is the co-convenor and chair of the PSA Turkish Politics Specialist Group. He is a lecturer in politics at the University of York. He works on moderation and radicalisation of non-state armed groups, state responses to internal conflicts, and democratisation. He examines these from a comparative perspective, but has a particular interest in the cases of Northern Ireland and Turkey. His research has appeared in Government and Opposition, Middle East Policy, Ethnopolitics, as well as a monograph with Edinburgh University Press, and he is Co-Editor of the Routledge Handbook of Turkish Politics. He can be reached at matthew.whiting@york.ac.uk

rabia karakaya polat

Rabia Karakaya Polat is the International Relations officer of the PSA Turkish Politics Specialist Group. She is a professor of political science at the Department of International Relations at Isık University in Istanbul. She was a visiting fellow at the Department of Government at the University of Essex during 2017-2018. Her research has focused mostly on the political implications of technology including the digital divide, e-government and the technological dimension of civil-military relations. More recently her research has focused on critical discourse analysis and refugee discourse and policy. Prof. Polat’s research has been funded by the British Academy, TUBITAK and Isik University Research Fund. She has published extensively in journals such as Critical Discourse Studies, Security Dialogue, Parliamentary Affairs, the European Journal of Communication, and Government Information Quarterly.

BEGUM ZORLU

Begüm Zorlu is the digital media officer of the PSA Turkish Politics Specialist Group. She is a PhD candidate and a teaching assistant in the department of International Politics at City, University of London. Begüm’s research focuses on political parties and contentious politics in Latin America and the Middle East. She has also worked on the dynamics of peace processes and documentary photography. Her work can be seen on her personal website www.begumzorlu.com.

Seçkin Sertdemir Özdemir

Seçkin Sertdemir Özdemir is Collegium Researcher in the Department of Philosophy, Contemporary History and Political Science and Turku Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Turku and Visiting Fellow in the European Institute at London School of Economics and Political Science. She is currently leading an interdisciplinary research project on new securitisation practices and modes of governance in Turkey. Her recent research was published in Punishment & Society, Journal of Refugee Studies, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. She can be contacted at sseozd@utu.fi.

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