Research Interests:
Comparative-Historical Sociology, Social Theory, Political Sociology, Research Methods
In particular:
Ethnic and Religious Conflict, Nationalism, State Building, State-Society Relations, Balkans and Middle East, Ottoman Empire and Turkey

I am primarily a political sociologist and my interests are in studying large scale social change, particularly from the Middle East and the Balkans area, from a comparative-historical perspective. In my work I aim to build meso or “middle range” theories and models of social change by employing the comparative methods and by collecting rich empirical data from the regions I study. More specifically, my research focuses on state building processes, nationalism, ethnic and religious politics within a social change framework.

Some of the questions I have been working on are about transition periods, and revolve around identifying turning points or critical junctures for states and societies. For example, against the larger backdrop of how and why empires failed and nation-states became the dominant political form in the world, I explore when and how autocracies transition to democracy and particular ethnic or religious movements turn violent. My recent work, a book manuscript on the process of state-building in eastern and southeastern Europe and the Middle East during the late19th and 20th centuries, looks at how political elites interact with and use national and transnational ideologies, and how this process impacts the form and the content of the states.

I also have an interest in understanding the lack of change when one expects to see it. For instance, I identify cases in which certain types of political institutions, and communities, such as ethnically and religiously diverse ones, manage to survive unexpectedly in times of local or global turbulence. In my new project, “Reconciling Diversity amidst Nation Building: A Comparative Study of Ethno-religious Conflict in Turkey”, I focus on the Southeastern part of Turkey, with a complex ethnic composition and failed assimilation policies. I am analyzing the implications of the early twentieth century political changes that impacted many of the ethnic and religious communities, and the conditions under which ethno-religious conflict, nationalist, and separatist movements arose. Using a mixed methodology, that includes fieldwork/interviews and content analysis of contemporary and historical documents from three cities- Mardin, Antakya and Diyarbakir, I explore the causes of varying degrees of ethnic and religious conflict; and aim to contribute to our understanding of conflict and peace building in communities with complex ethnic and religious pasts in Turkey in particular, and the Middle East in general.