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Our Contributors
Ali Agcakulu
Founder and DirectorDr. Agcakulu is the academic, author and columnist. After he graduated from the Graduate School of Social Sciences at the Yildiz Technical University in 2016, he worked as a Post-doctorate research fellow at The Catholic University of America. He published two books; “The Brief History of Kurdish Nationalism” and “Said Nursi’s Political Theory or The Reform of Islamic Political Thought”. As a journalist, he was a columnist with Rota Haber news website in 2015. He has many academic and semi-academic articles published in various magazines and newspaper. He worked as columnist in the Ahvalnews and Ocak Medya news websites. His expertise is on the history and philosophy of relationships between religion and politics in Turkey.
Ergun Babahan
ContributorErgun Babahan is a Turkish journalist, writer, and editor known for his contributions to Turkish media and his outspoken political views. He was born in 1959 in Turkey. Babahan studied law at Ankara University, which provided him with a strong foundation for his later work in political journalism. Career in Journalism Babahan started his journalism career in the 1980s and became one of the key figures in Turkish media. Over the years, he worked for several major newspapers and held important editorial positions. Some of his most notable roles include: Editor-in-Chief of Sabah Newspaper – One of Turkey’s leading newspapers. Columnist for Yeni Şafak and Star Newspapers – Writing on politics, democracy, and human rights. Contributor to Independent Turkish Media Outlets – Including opposition-friendly platforms. Babahan has been a strong advocate of press freedom, democracy, and human rights. His work often focused on Turkish politics, governance, and international affairs. Political Views and Exile Due to his critical stance against the Turkish government, particularly President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s policies, Babahan faced legal pressure and threats. As a result, he left Turkey and went into exile. From abroad, he continues to be an active voice in Turkish political discourse through journalism and social media. Current Work While in exile, Babahan has remained engaged in journalism and political analysis. He contributes to international news platforms and independent Turkish media, focusing on topics such as: Democracy and authoritarianism in Turkey Media freedom and press suppression Human rights violations Geopolitical dynamics in the region
Dimitar Bechev
ContributorDr. Bechev is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. He is also a research fellow at the Center of Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the director of the European Policy Institute, a think-tank based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Dr. Bechev has published extensively, in both academic and policy format, on EU foreign relations, the politics of Turkey and the Balkans, Russian foreign policy, and energy security. His book Rival Power, published by Yale University Press in 2017, explores Russia’s role in Southeast Europe (Balkans, Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey). He has held research and teaching positions at Oxford and Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo as well as visiting fellowships at Harvard and the London School of Economics. From 2010 to 2014, he was the head of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) office in Sofia. Dr. Bechev is a frequent contributor to Foreign Policy, Al Jazeera Online, Oxford Analytica, POLITICO, and EUObserver. His quotes have appeared in leading newspapers such as the Financial Times, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. He holds a DPhil in international relations from the University of Oxford.
Fevzi Sarac
ContributorDr. Fevzi Sarac is a political scientist whose work explores the intersections of civic engagement, political Islam, democratization, and the role of social movements in shaping political culture. His academic and intellectual journey has focused on how civic engagement, ethical education, and cultural values interact within both democratic and authoritarian contexts. He is particularly interested in how faith-based communities contribute to public life without relying on political power, and how religious identity is passed on in ways that emphasize dialogue, service, and shared moral responsibility. Drawing inspiration from questions at the heart of political philosophy, sociology, and theology, he approaches his work with a commitment to bridging theory and practice. His educational background includes a Ph.D. in Political Science from Louisiana State University, and he has taught a wide range of courses on global issues, Middle Eastern politics, political theory, social movements and research methods.
Samet Shabani
ContributorSamet Shabani is a US-based expert on countering violent extremism and Islamist populism in South East Europe. He has several coordinated projects and published products in the abovementioned topics, in individual capacity as expert, consultant, trainer and/or activity coordinator to a number of domestic and international organizations, such as: Radicalization Awareness Network (RAN), OSCE, Council of Europe (CoE), IOM, British Council and GLOBSEC. He is co-founder and former Chief Executive of Horizon Civitas, a North Macedonia-based non-profit on abovementioned topics. Samet Shabani is a non-resident research fellow at ELIAMEP (Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy). Shabani’s former working experience includes Research Fellow at Security and Foreign Policy Programe at Analytica Think-Tank, Deputy Head of Project Office at International Burch University, BiH and Project Consultant at ALFA Project Consultant & Management. He has also served as Political Analyst Assistant to 2018 Referendum Observation Mission to North Macedonia by ODIHR/OSCE. Samet's academic background includes a Master's degree (candidate) in Organizational Management from International Burch University, BiH and a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and International Relations from Istanbul University, Turkey. His former fellowships include: International Visitors and Leadership Program (IVLP) on P/CVE and REMVE by U.S State Department; Advanced Summer Programme: Terrorism, Counter-terrorism and the Rule of Law by International Centre for Counter-Terrorism and T.C.M Asser Institute in Netherlands; Sustainable Public Management in Malmö University by Swedish Academy for Young Professionals (SAYP); School of Public Policy by Council of Europe; School for Politics by Presidency of North Macedonia. He has been recognized for his work with awards such as the IVLP Impact Award "For Dialogue, Against Extremism!" from the U.S. Department of State and the Best Idea at campaign #IfItIsUpToMe from the OSCE Mission to Skopje. Samet is a native Albanian and Macedonian speaker, fluent in English and Turkish, and proficient in Bosnian and French.
M Hakan Yavuz
ContributorDr. Yavuz is a professor of political science at the University of Utah. His current projects focus on transnational Islamic networks in Central Asia and Turkey; the role of Islam in state-building and nationalism; ethnic cleansing and genocide; and ethno-religious conflict management. Yavuz received his earlier education in Ankara, Turkey, graduated with B.A. from Siyasal Bilgiler Fakultesi, Ankara. He received his M.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and spent a semester at the Hebrew University, Israel (1990) and received his Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1998 in political science. M. Hakan Yavuz so far published four books: Toward and Islamic Enlightenment: The Gülen Movement (Oxford University Press, 2013). Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (Oxford University Press, 2003); Muslim Democracy and Secularism in Turkey (Cambridge University Press, 2009); ed. The Emergence of a New Turkey (University of Utah Press, 2007).Yavuz has received a number of fellowships, some of them are the MacArthur fellowship,University of California Fellowship, Rockefeller Fellowship, and most recently was a Tanner Humanities Center Fellow in 2014. Yavuz also carried out an extensive fieldwork in Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan to examine the relationship between Islam and nationalism and the preservation and dissemination of Islamic knowledge under socialism. He is an author of more than 30 articles on Islam, nationalism, Kurdish question, and modern Turkish politics. He published in Comparative Politics, Middle East Critique, Middle East Journal, Oxford Journal of Islamic Studies, SAIS Review, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Current History, Central Asian Survey, Journal of Islamic Studies, and Journal of Palestine Studies.Some of his articles are translated into Arabic and Bosnian from English. He is an editorial member of Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs and Critique.
Micheal Gunter
ContributorDr. Gunter is a professor of political science at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee, where he won the Caplenor Faculty Research Award in 1995, the Outstanding Faculty Award in Teaching in 2000, the Faculty Research Award in 2023-2024, and the American Political Science Association award for Outstanding Teaching in Political Science in 2000, among others. He also is the Secretary-General of the EU Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC) headquartered in Brussels. In the past he taught courses for many years during the summer at the International University in Vienna where he won the Distinguished Visiting Professor Award in 2003, as well as courses on Kurdish and Middle Eastern politics, among others, for the U.S. Government Areas Studies Program and U.S. Department of State Foreign Service Institute in Washington, D.C. He has also taught at Kent State University and Fisk University. Dr. Gunter is the author or editor of 23 critically praised, peer-reviewed scholarly books on the Kurdish question and other subjects. He has also published more than 200 peer-reviewed scholarly book chapters and articles on the Kurds and many other issues in such leading scholarly periodicals as the Middle East Journal, Middle East Policy, Middle East Quarterly, Middle East Critique, Orient, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Maghreb Review, Orbis, American Journal of International Law, International Organization, World Affairs, Journal of International Affairs (Columbia University), Brown Journal of World Affairs, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Current History, Third World Quarterly, International Journal of Turkish Studies, Insight Turkey, Turkish Studies, Terrorism: An International Journal, and Arms Control, among numerous others. His most recent books are Heydar Aliyev and the Foundations of Modern Azerbaijan (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024); Erdogan’s Path to Authoritarianism: The Continuing Journey (Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2024); The Karabakh Conflict Between Armenia and Azerbaijan (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023); The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Historical and Political Perspectives (London and New York, 2023); The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Problems and New Dynamics (Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2020); Kurdish Autonomy and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Peter Lang, 2020); The Kurds: A Divided Nation in Search of a State, 3rd ed., (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2019); Routledge Handbook on the Kurds, (London & New York: Routledge, 2019); Historical Dictionary of the Kurds, 3rd ed., (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018); Kurdish Issues: Essays in Honor of Robert W. Olson (Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 2016); and Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War (London: Hurst Publications, 2014).
Ali Bulac
ContributorAli Bulaç is a prominent Turkish intellectual, writer, journalist, author, researcher, and sociologist. Born on March 10, 1951, in Mardin. After completing his primary and secondary education in Mardin, he graduated from the Istanbul Higher Islamic Institute (1975) and from the Department of Sociology at Istanbul University, Faculty of Letters (1980). Together with a group of friends, he launched the journal Düşünce (1976–1980). He served as editor-in-chief of İnsan Publishing (1984), and later as editor-in-chief of the journals Kitap Dergisi (from 1988), Bilgi ve Hikmet (1993), and Bilgi ve Düşünce (2001). His essays and research have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines, and he has hosted programs on television. He has taught courses at various universities on Religion and Politics, Political Thought in the Ottoman Empire, Modernization Policies, New Searches in Democracy, and Islamic Thought/Schools of Thought. He is known for his research and analyses on the contemporary Islamic world, problems of thought, social change, and modernization. His essays—ranging from literary criticism to analytical commentary—were published in Hareket (1973), İslâm Medeniyeti (1974), Tohum (1973), Sur (1973), Düşünce (1976–1980), Tevhid (1979), Hicret (1979), Yeni Zemin, Nehir, Bilgi ve Hikmet, and other journals, as well as in the newspapers Millî Gazete, Yeni Şafak, and Zaman. He received the Turkish Writers’ Union Award (1988) in the ideas/thought category for his book İnsanın Özgürlük Arayışı (The Human Quest for Freedom) and was named “Writer of the Year in Social-Political Analysis” (2005) by the Private Feza Anatolian Vocational High School of Communication. He was included in “The 500 Most Influential Muslims” list published in 2009 by Georgetown University (USA) and the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre (Jordan). In a survey jointly conducted by Istanbul Private Burç Vocational High School of Communication and GENAR Research-Education-Consultancy across 20 provinces with 5,200 participants (Nov 2008–Feb 2009), he was ranked first among the ten most-read authors in Turkey. In his books, he focuses especially on the attitudes that being a Muslim in the modern world both requires and entails. Emphasizing the “Charter of Medina” as a key point of reference, he argues that Muslims and non-Muslims can live together in the same society without exclusion and without conflict. He opposes explaining Muslims through left–right labels and underscores the sacredness of Islam. His Qur’an translation (meâl) has stood out for its relatively plain language and clarity compared to many other translations. Works Kur’an-ı Kerim ve Türkçe Anlamı (The Qur’an and Its Turkish Meaning), 47th printing, 2009 Kur’an ve Sünnet Üzerine (On the Qur’an and the Sunnah), 3rd printing, 1985 İslâm Dünyasında Toplumsal Değişme (Social Change in the Islamic World), 4th printing, 1995 İslâm Dünyasında Düşünce Sorunları (Problems of Thought in the Islamic World), 6th printing, 1995 Din ve Modernizm (Religion and Modernism), 5th printing, 2006 Nuh’un Gemisine Binmek (Boarding Noah’s Ark), 3rd printing, 1995 İslam Düşüncesinde Din-Felsefe / Vahiy-Akıl İlişkisi (Religion–Philosophy / Revelation–Reason in Islamic Thought), 6th printing, 2016 Kutsala, Tarihe ve Hayata Dönüş (Return to the Sacred, to History, and to Life), 3rd printing, 2006 Modernizm, İrtica ve Sivilleşme (Modernism, Reaction, and Civilianization), 5th printing, 1995 İnsanın Özgürlük Arayışı (The Human Quest for Freedom), 6th printing, 2015 Çağdaş Kavramlar ve Düzenler (Contemporary Concepts and Orders), 33rd printing, 2008 — translated into Albanian Din ve Siyaset (Religion and Politics), 2nd printing, 2014 Tarih, Toplum ve Gelenek (History, Society, and Tradition), 3rd printing, 2007 — translated into Albanian Postmodern Kaosta Kıble Arayışı (Seeking the Qibla in Postmodern Chaos), 2nd printing, 2015 Avrupa Birliği ve Türkiye (The European Union and Turkey), 2nd printing, 2000 Bilgi Neyi Bilmektir? (What Is It to Know Knowledge?), 5th printing, 2013 Modern Ulus Devlet (The Modern Nation-State), 3rd printing, 2007 Aydın Sapması’ndan Aydın-Ulema Profiline (From the Intellectual’s Deviation to an Intellectual–Ulama Profile), 2008 Din, Kent ve Cemaat (Religion, the City, and Community), 2008 İslâm’dan Korkmalı mıyız – Fanatizm, Fundamentalizm, İslamofobi (Should We Fear Islam?—Fanaticism, Fundamentalism, Islamophobia), 2009 Göçün ve Kentin Siyaseti – MNP’den SP’ye Millî Görüş Partileri (The Politics of Migration and the City—The National Vision Parties from MNP to SP), 2009 Göçün ve Kentin İktidarı – Millî Görüş’ten Muhafazakâr Demokrasi’ye AK Parti (The Power of Migration and the City—From National Vision to Conservative Democracy: The AK Party), 2010 Ortadoğu’dan İttihad-ı İslâm’a (2 vols.) (From the Middle East to the Union of Islam), 2014 Kadını Kim Örttü? – Nehir Söyleşileri (Who Veiled the Woman?—River Interviews), 2014 Turkey’s Democracy Saga – The Struggle Against Interventionist Politics (New York/Istanbul, 2015) Amal Kebire ve Hakaik Mariyra (Cairo, 2015) — Arabic title as provided Kur’an Dersleri (Dirasatü’l-Kur’an) / Tefsir (Qur’anic Lessons / Exegesis), 7 vols., 2016
Amy Booth
ContributorDr Amy Booth is a medical doctor and interdisciplinary researcher working at the intersection of health, environmental crises, and sustainability. She completed her DPhil at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, exploring pharmaceutical companies’ climate action and pathways to net zero. Prior to this, she graduated summa cum laude with an MBChB from the University of Cape Town and worked as a medical doctor in South Africa. This clinical experience exposed her to both the health impacts of environmental crises and the environmental impact of health care, inspiring her transition into sustainable health research. Amy’s research has been published in journals including The Lancet Planetary Health, BMJ Leader, and the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. She is co-authoring a forthcoming book on sustainable health care and has presented her work internationally, including invited talks at the UK House of Commons, the European Society for Medical Oncology, and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, as well as appearances on the BBC and various podcasts. Alongside this, Amy has advised the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and health projects across sub-Saharan Africa. She is an inaugural member of the UK Young Academy, an Academy of Medical Sciences Emerging Research Leader in Climate and Health, and an ERASMUS+ PlanEd Prescribing Associate Partner. Amy currently co-leads the MSc in Translational Health Sciences module on Sustainable Health Care at Oxford. Alongside this, she holds a research fellow position at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, exploring sustainable medicines management as part of a nation-wide Green Healthcare Hub on decarbonising health and social care. Amy provides supervision for postgraduate students and is happy to hear from potential DPhil students with interest in sustainable health care.
Mumtaz'er Turkone
ContributorMümtaz’er Türköne was born in 1956 in Istanbul. He graduated from the Political and Administrative Sciences Department of the Faculty of Political Sciences of Ankara University in 1978. He received master's degree in 1986 and PhD in 1990 from the same faculty. Türköne became associate professor in 1993 and professor in 1999. He worked at Gazi University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of International Relations until his retirement. He lives in Istanbul. Türköne has many articles and books in the fields of Islamism, nationalism, secularism, and 19th Century Turkish Political History. He was imprisoned for 2 years after the 12 September 1980 Military Coup, and for more than 4 years as a Zaman Newspaper writer after 15 July 2016.