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
Environmental Crises and Militarisation in the Global South
This project studies how environmental crises are used to justify expanding military involvement in civilian governance in the Global South. Building on my previous research on “stealth militarisation” — the incremental expansion of military roles under civilian governments, often in response to political, social or security crises — it explores how climate emergencies, environmental degradation and conflicts over natural resources can create new opportunities for militarisation. Conducted as part of my work as Visiting Professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and Research Associate at the Latin American Centre, University of Oxford, the project investigates the political conditions under which environmental governance becomes militarised, the forms this involvement takes, and its consequences for democratic institutions, civilian oversight and affected communities. Through comparative research in Brazil and Indonesia, it brings civil–military relations into conversation with debates on environmental security, democratic erosion and green militarisation.
Strange Bedfellows: Intra-elite rivalries and populist-elite bargaining in tutelary hybrid regimes
Developed with support from a BA/Leverhulme Small Grant, this project examines how intra-elite rivalries enable the rise of populist challengers and how subsequent populist–elite coalitions transform tutelary hybrid regimes. It builds on my book "Guardianship and Democracy in Iran and Turkey: Tutelary Consolidation, Popular Contestation" (Edinburgh University Press, 2024). With Dr Yasser Kureshi, I compare Iran, Pakistan and Turkey to explore the formation, evolution and breakdown of alliances between populist leaders and established elites. The project challenges conventional understandings of populism as a conflict between “the people” and a unified establishment, showing instead how elite fragmentation can enable populist disruption and shape subsequent regime trajectories. Its principal output is a comparative article developing a framework for understanding how the balance between populist mobilisation and elite institutional power shapes these coalitions and their consequences. The research contributes to broader debates on populism, elite bargaining, civil–military relations and democratic erosion.
Autocratic Appeal and Democratic Resistance
This project examines the actors, institutions and social forces that drive and resist processes of autocratisation around the world. A major output is "The Limits of Autocratisation: Actors and Institutions of Democratic Resistance and Opposition", a special issue of Third World Quarterly that I co-edited, bringing together interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives on resistance to autocratisation across the Global South. The project developed out of an international conference I co-organised at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in November 2022. This research agenda now continues through my role as Senior Researcher in the Horizon Europe project "DeAppeal: Deconstruct and Resist Autocratic Appeal to Reinvigorate Democracy". DeAppeal shifts attention to the appeal of autocratic projects themselves, examining how affective, discursive and material forces make them resonate with citizens, as well as the conditions and practices through which democratic alternatives and resistance can be strengthened.
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?
Listen to podcast conversations about the book on Turkey Book Talk and on Rethinking Democracy.
Contesting Autocratisation: Actors and Institutions of Democratic Resistance in a Global Perspective
Routledge (2025)
While authoritarianism continues to gain ground globally, this book offers a comparative and nuanced perspective into how, when and where autocratization may be contested and sometimes reversed. Drawing on rich case studies from across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Southeastern Europe, the chapters in this book map the actors and institutions of resistance, ranging from political parties and bureaucrats to social movements and transnational alliances. Rather than offering a binary view of success or failure of opposition and resistance, the book adopts a dynamic, process-driven approach, considering the conditions under which resistance emerges, adapts and persists even in shrinking civic and political spaces.
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
The Sultan’s Army? Remaking of Civil-Military Relations in Turkey. In R. Brooks and C. Harig (eds). Politicization of the Military in Contemporary Democracies. Oxford University Press (Forthcoming 2026)
Conflict and Democratisation. In M. Uyar and E. J. Erickson (eds). The Routledge Handbook of Modern Turkish History. Routledge (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)
Policy Papers
Since 2020, I have been contributing regularly to Oxford Analytica Daily Briefs on Turkey's domestic and geopolitics.
A Difficult Balancing Act: Turkish-Iranian relations in turbulent times
Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies (2026
Coronavirus in Turkey. Emergency Under A Permanent State of Emergency
PEX Network: Executives, Presidents and Cabinet Politics (2020)
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.