Welcome! I am a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. I specialize in Comparative Politics and International Relations. My primary research interests include transnationalism, migration, and authoritarianism. My work generally examines the dynamics of global migration and its social, political, and legal consequences. Specifically, I am interested in home and host state policy responses to migration, the various dynamics that shape immigrant political behavior, and how immigrants respond to state policies and practices.
In 2022, I joined the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs as a Doctoral Fellow, working on issues at the intersection of cybersecurity, democracy, and human rights.
Previously, I was a Research Fellow (2021-22) at the Trudeau Centre for Peace, Conflict, and Justice at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. I was also a Research Fellow (2021-22) at the R.F. Harney Program in Ethnic, Immigration, and Pluralism Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.
Dissertation
In my dissertation, I explore the ability of authoritarian migrant-sending states (home states) to engage, mobilize, demobilize and repress their diasporas across different democratic migrant-receiving countries (host states). More specifically, I explain why authoritarian home states are able to mobilize their citizens abroad in some host state contexts, while they fail to do so in others. My primary case study is Turkey and its diaspora engagement across European host country contexts where I have conducted various episodes of multi-sited fieldwork between 2017 and 2022. Due to the ongoing pandemic, I further shifted to new remote and digital methodologies, in addition to in-person fieldwork activities to generate additional data for my dissertation project.
My dissertation is supported by the Joint Initiative in German and European Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and the School of Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto.
Recent Publications
Analysis.
‘How Turkey’s Opposition Seeks to Swing Diaspora Voters’ (2023).
Foreign Policy.
Journal Article. ‘Repressing in the name of? Externalization dynamics in Turkey’s use of digital repression against refugees’ with Noura Al-Jizawi (2023).
Democratization.
Journal Article. ‘Transnational Mobilization of Future Generations by Non-Democratic Home States: Turkey’s Diaspora Youth Between Empowerment and Co-optation.’ with Bahar Baser (2022)
Ethnopolitics
Book Review. Review of “The Arab Spring Abroad: Diaspora Activism against Authoritarian Regimes” by Dana M. Moss (2022).
Social Forces.
Paper. ‘Generation Gezi: Jugend, Polarisierung und die “neue Türkei”’ (2014). Berliner Debatte Initial.
Blog Post. ‘Authoritarian Home States and Diaspora Youth in Europe: Insights from the Turkish Case’ with Bahar Baser (2020).
Journal Article. ‘Populist Diaspora Engagement - Party-led Outreach under Turkey’s AKP and India’s BJP’ with Nidhi Panwar (2022).
Diaspora Studies.
Journal Article. ‘Home and Host Country Policy Interaction in the Making of Turkey’s Diasporas’ (2022).
Middle East Critique.
Report. “CatalanGate: Extensive Mercenary Spyware Operation against Catalans Using Pegasus and Candiru” with John Scott-Railton, Elies Campo, Bill Marczak, Bahr Abdul Razzak, Siena Antsis, Salvatore Solimano and Ron Deibert (2022).
Citizen Lab.
Book Chapter. 'Debating State Organization Principles in the Constitutional Conciliation Commission’ with Felix Petersen (2020).
Cambridge University Press.