Research
My research focuses on the actors and institutions that drive and resist democratisation, autocratisation and militarisation in the Global South. I explore this topic from an interregional perspective, through in-depth comparison of cases that are not typically compared, such as Turkey, Brazil, Iran and Indonesia. In my research, I employ a mixed-methods approach to comparative politics, using archival resources and interviews alongside quantitative data.
Find out about my current projects and publications below.
Current Projects
Strange Bedfellows: Intra-elite rivalries and populist-elite bargaining in tutelary hybrid regimes
This 1.5-year project was recently awarded a BA/Leverhulme Small Grant to study how populist challengers emerge to disrupt the established order in tutelary hybrid regimes, and the consequences of these disruptions. It builds upon my forthcoming monograph “Guardianship and Democracy in Iran and Turkey: Tutelary Consolidation, Popular Contestation”, out by Edinburgh UP in September. With my colleague Dr. Yasser Kureshi, we will conduct field work in Turkey and Pakistan to explore the dynamics of political contestation and transition in hybrid regimes facing populist ascendancy; an overlooked issue in the literature. We will organise a workshop on the topic at Oxford, and disseminate findings through peer reviewed articles and blog posts. This research is a first step in a broader project on populist-elite bargaining across a wider comparative scope. Our project will contribute to the field of comparative politics by breaking new ground in our understanding of hybrid regimes, populism and elite bargaining.
Autocratisation and its limits in the post-liberal world order
Declared triumphant at the end of the Cold War, liberal democracy, with its institutions solidly based in the nation-state, appears ill equipped to deal with the “liquid modernity” and the transnational challenges the 21st century poses. This project aims to understand the actors and institutions that pursue and resist processes of autocratisation around the world. At the heart of the project is "The Limits of Autocratisation: The Actors and Institutions of Democratic Resistance” -- a special issue I am guest editing for Third World Quarterly. It offers a theorised account of the socio-political and international resistance to autocratisation through an interdisciplinary and ambitiously comparative perspective that features case studies across the Global South. The project is the culmination of an international conference on the topic I co-organised at Ca’Foscari University of Venice in November 2022.
Stealth militarisation and democratic erosion
This is an interdisciplinary and interregional initiative exploring the changing nature of military involvement in civil and political life in countries experiencing crises of democracy. While overt military coups are less common today than at the height of the Cold War, a new kind of militarisation – occurring incrementally, often in the context of national or international crises, and at the behest of civilian leaders – is picking up pace around the world. The project explores the causes, dynamics and consequences of "stealth militarisation" in the context of democratic erosion by carrying out in-depth research into five sympotmatic country cases, each representing different facets and stages of democratic erosion and stealth militarisation: Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey and the United States. Building on my existing research on civil-military relations in Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia, I am currently putting together a multinational team of experts to apply for a four-year grant from the joint ESRC - FAPESP (State of Sao Paulo funding body) scheme.
Publications
Books
Edinburgh University Press (2024)
This monograph offers the first comparative study of the foundations, consolidation and contestation of regime guardianship in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Turkey. For decades, the military in Turkey and the clergy in Iran acted as the guardians of Atatürk and Khomeini’s ideological legacies. At the turn of the 21st century rising popular actors in both countries started challenging the tutelary control of the state and society. While in Turkey the clash between the Kemalist guardians and their Islamist-led rivals resulted in a victory for the latter, although not for democracy, in Iran, traditionalist guardians were able to thwart popular challenges to their authority at the expense of the regime’s democratic legitimacy. How was guardianship established, consolidated and contested in these republics with seemingly inimical founding ideologies? Why did it unravel in Turkey but survive in the Islamic Republic in the early 2010s? And what do these power struggles and their outcomes tell us about political contestation in tutelary hybrid regimes?
Routledge (2018)
This edited volume analyses Turkey's rapid democratic decline through a comparative study of illiberal goverance in Russia, Southeast Europe and Latin America. Democratic government is facing unprecedented challenges at a global scale. The scale and speed of Turkey's descent into conflict, crisis and autocracy have been particularly alarming. Examining how this power grab comes at the tail end of more than a decade of seemingly democratic politics, the contributors also explore the mechanisms of de-democratization through two distinctive, but interrelated angles: A set of comparative analyses explores illiberal forms of governance in Turkey, Russia, Southeast Europe and Latin America. In-depth studies analyse how Turkey's society has been reshaped in the image of a patriarchal habitus and how consent has been fabricated through religious, educational, ethnic and civil society policies. Despite this comprehensive authoritarian shift, the result is not authoritarian consolidation, but a deeply divided and contested polity. Analysing examples of democratic decline and authoritarian politics, this volume is relevant well beyond the confines of regional studies.
IISS Adelphi Series, Routledge (2007)
Based on my MPhil dissertation at the University of Cambridge, this concise monograph studies military reform and democratisation through the experiences of Turkey and Indonesia, two countries with predominantly Muslim populations, secular constitutions, and politically active militaries that were undergoing a process of political liberalisation at the turn of the millennium. The monograph strives to explain why both the Turkish and Indonesian militaries, which have developed a sense of ownership over the state, may be wary of democratic change, how the military’s traditional tutelary role is perceived society, and in which direction socio-political and military attitudes towards democratic reform have been evolving over the years. In relating these domestic observations to various external factors, it seeks to identify the regional and global trends, events and actors that promote and obstruct the development of substantive democracy in both countries, and to draw broader lessons for the study of democratisation and military reform.
Special Issues
Limits of Autocratisation: Actors and Institutions of Democratic Resistance and Opposition. With B. Yabancı and K. Öktem. Third World Quarterly (Volume 46, Issue 2, 2025)
Exit from democracy: Illiberal governance in Turkey and beyond. With K. Öktem. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies (Volume 16, Issue 4, 2016)
Journal Articles
Limits of Autocratisation: Actors and Institutions of Democratic Resistance and Opposition. With B. Yabancı and K. Öktem. Third World Quarterly (Introduction to Special Issue, 2025)
Blood Gambit: How autocratising populists fuel ethnic conflict to reserve election setbacks - evidence from Turkey and Israel. With Y. Sarfati. Democratization (2024)
Brazil’s Stealth Military Intervention. With J. A. Lima. Journal of Politics in Latin America (2022)
Book Chapters
Conflict and Democratisation. In M. Uyar and E. J. Erickson (eds). The Routledge Handbook of Modern Turkish History. Routledge (Forthcoming 2025)
After the stealth intervention: Civil-military relations and rule of law in post-Bolsonaro Brazil. With J. A. Lima. In L. Whitehead and J. Behrend (eds). Mounting Pressures on the Rule of Law: Governability for Development and Democracy in Latin America. Routledge (2025)
Sessiz Devrimin Gürültülü Sonu: Brezilya İşçi Partisi’nin Yükselişi ve Düşüşü [The Turbulent End of the Silent Revolution: The Rise and Fall of Brazil's Workers’ Party]. In E. Akgemci, and K. Ates. Dünya’nın Ters Köşesi: Latin Amerika: Tarih, Toplum, Kültür. Iletisim (2020)
Kemalism and the Republican People’s Party (CHP). With B. Oran. In E. Altındış, E. Özyürek, G. Özpınar (eds). Authoritarianism and Resistance in Turkey: Conversations on Democratic and Social Challenges. Springer (2019)
Electoral integrity in Turkey: from tutelary democracy to competitive authoritarianism. In B. Başer and A.E. Öztürk (eds). Authoritarian Politics in Turkey: Elections, Resistance and the AKP. I.B. Tauris (2019)
Turkey’s Iranian Conundrum: A Delicate Balancing Act. In A. Kadıoğlu, M. Karlı and K. Öktem (eds). Another Empire? Turkey’s foreign policy in a new century. Bilgi University Press (2012)
Research Papers
The Civil Service in Brazil and Turkey: A Comparative Study
The National School of Public Administration, Brasilia (2018)
Western Condition: Turkey, the US and the EU in the New Middle East
SEESOX Book Series on Current Affairs, Oxford (2013)
With K. Nicolaïdis and K. Öktem.