Domestic Drivers of Turkey’s Democratic Transformation
Tuesday, April 16, 2013 12:00pm – 1:30pm
Speaker: Sener Akturk (Koc University) Moderator: Kadir Ustun (SETA DC)
Turkey’s democratization process over the past decade has been the subject of much debate. Many studies identify external dynamics such as Turkey’s EU membership negotiations as main drivers of democratic progress. Internal dynamics that made possible various democratic initiatives, such as the reforms allowing for much broader ethnic, linguistic, and religious minority rights, however, remain underappreciated. As the country seeks to consolidate its democracy through a new civilian constitution, lessons from the past decade will be critical to identify contours of democratic change in Turkey.
On April 16, 2013, the Young Scholars on Turkey (YSOT) Program will host a discussion on the domestic drivers of Turkey’s democratic transformation. The panel will feature Sener Akturk, Assistant Professor at Koc University in Istanbul, author of a new book, Regimes of Ethnicity and Nationhood in Germany, Russia, and Turkey, recently published by Cambridge University Press. Kadir Ustun, Research Director at SETA DC, will moderate the discussion.
Light lunch will be provided.
Biographies
Sener Akturk is an Assistant Professor at Koç University in Istanbul. He holds degrees from the University of Chicago (BA, MA) and the University of California, Berkeley (MA, PhD). He has spent extended periods in Vienna, Berlin, and Moscow for language study and doctoral research. Prior to his current appointment, he was a postdoctoral Fellow at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and a visiting lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University. He is a recipient of a Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant from the European Commission. He has published more than thirty articles in international and national refereed academic journals, including World Politics, Post-Soviet Affairs, European Journal of Sociology, Middle Eastern Studies, Nationalities Papers, Ab Imperio, Turkish Studies, Insight Turkey, and Theoria. He has authored chapters in various edited books published in Turkey, Russia, Hungary and the United States. He is the author of Regimes of Ethnicity and Nationhood in Germany, Russia, and Turkey, published by Cambridge University Press.
Kadir Ustun is the Research Director at the SETA Foundation at Washington, D.C. He also serves as an Assistant Editor of Insight Turkey, an academic journal published by the SETA Foundation. Mr. Ustun holds a master’s degree in History from Bilkent University and an M.Phil from Columbia University. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Middle East and South Asian Studies at Columbia University. Mr. Ustun has taught courses on history, politics, culture, and art in the Islamic World as well as Western political thought at Columbia University and George Mason University. His research interests include civil-military relations, social and military modernization in the Middle East, US-Turkey relations, and Turkish foreign policy. Mr. Ustun has contributed to various SETA reports and his writings have appeared in Sabah Daily, insideIRAN.org, Al-Monitor.com, Al Jazeera English, Insight Turkey, and Cairo Review of Global Affairs. He is also co-editor of an edited volume – History, Politics and Foreign Policy in Turkey – published by the SETA Foundation.
