Batıkan Bulut
Research Areas: Comparative Politics, Turkish Politics, Migration and Diaspora
Batıkan Bulut’s dissertation examines the emergence, guiding principles, and core elements of Turkey’s diaspora regime and its institutional implications. His research interests include citizenship policy, civil society, nationalism, religion and society within the Turkish context, and migration studies.
E-mail: batikan.bulut@bilkent.edu.tr
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Meral Uğur-Çınar
Can Çelik
Research Areas: Comparative Politics, Social and Cultural Theory, Militarism & Nationalism.
Thesis Summary: Can Çelik’s dissertation investigates the everyday manifestations of militarization in Turkey, with a special focus on how militarized masculinities are constructed and deconstructed.
E-mail: can.celik@bilkent.edu.tr
Supervisor: Dr Başak İnce
Didem İşçi Kuru
Research Areas: Comparative Politics, Turkish Politics, Party Politics
Thesis Summary: Didem İşçi Kuru’s dissertation explores how opposition parties respond to democratic backsliding, emphasizing the strategies they adopt to remain competitive. It analyzes party–voter linkages and the formation of electoral alliances as key mechanisms of opposition resilience.
E-mail: didem.isci@bilkent.edu.tr
Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Kerem Yıldırım
Şule Taşçığlu Örs
Research Areas: Turkish Politics, Comparative Politics, Gender and Politics
Thesis Summary: Şule Taşçığlu Örs’s Ph.D. dissertation analyzes how a diverse range of gender‑based civil society organizations in Turkey balance transnational human‑rights principles with local cultural and political contexts. It examines how these organizations influence legal interpretations, affect state practices, and potentially foster inclusionary policies.
E-mail: sule.tascioglu@bilkent.edu.tr
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Meral Uğur Çınar
Eray Şimşek
Research Areas: Political theory, Turkish politics, politics of globalization.
Thesis Summary: Eray Şimşek’s dissertation research investigates the rise of multistakeholder language in global governance. Focusing on health, finance, and climate governance between the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 COVID‑19 pandemic, he examines how multistakeholderism has emerged as a legitimizing discourse.
Email: eray.simsek@bilkent.edu.tr
Supervisor: John James Alexander
Egesu Sayar
Research Areas: Comparative Politics, Social and Cultural Theory, Collective Memory
Thesis Summary: Egesu Sayar studies protest narratives of contemporary student movements in Turkey. By analyzing repertoires of contention, collective‑memory processes, and claim‑making strategies, her research focuses on how these movements frame demands for democratic participation and construct collective identities.
E-mail: egesu.sayar@bilkent.edu.tr
Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Meral Uğur Çınar
Hande Tuhanioğlu
Research Areas: Political Theory, Social and Cultural Studies, Work and Society
Thesis Summary: Hande Tuhanioğlu’s dissertation explores the reception of identity politics in Turkey from 1980 to 2000, emphasizing the mediating role of translation in reshaping the post‑1980 intellectual landscape. Using critical discourse analysis, archival research, and oral history, she examines how translated texts in political theory, philosophy, literary criticism, and social criticism influenced Turkey’s political vocabulary and conceptual frameworks.
E-mail: hande.tuhanioglu@bilkent.edu.tr
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. İhsan İlker Aytürk
İsmail Yazıcı
Research Areas: Turkish Politics, Political Theory, Comtemporary Islamic Political Thought
Thesis Summary: İsmail Yazıcı’s doctoral research examines the transformation of Cold War–era Islamism in Turkey, focusing on the impact of global Islamic revivalism on the political thought of the Turkish Muslim intelligentsia.
E-mail: ismail.yazici@bilkent.edu.tr
Supervisor: Prof. Alev Çınar
Cansu Yetimoğlu
Research Areas: Turkish Politics, Comparative Politics, Politics and Gender
Thesis Summary: Cansu Yetimoğlu’s dissertation offers a critical analysis of how women’s labor and employment are discursively constructed in the Turkish Parliament. Situated at the intersection of feminist political economy and representation theory, her research examines how legislative debates frame women’s economic participation within broader ideological and institutional struggles over gender and welfare.
E-mail: cansu.yetimoglu@bilkent.edu.tr
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Meral Uğur-Çınar
Didem Yılmaz
Research Areas: Social and Cultural Studies, Political Theory, Technologies of the Self
Thesis Summary : Didem Yılmaz’s dissertation investigates the construction of national identities through representations of the gendered and racialized body in Cold War–era German visual art, with a particular emphasis on photographic practices. Grounded in political anthropology, her work examines how postwar German self‑perception was shaped in both the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic.
E-mail: didem.yilmaz@bilkent.edu.tr
Supervisor: Assistant Professor Başak İnce