34th BATAS SPRING SYMPOSIUM
Turkish Politics and Society in Flux:
Identity, Policy, and Transnational Dynamics
Saturday, 7th June 2025 10:00-17:00
Marshall Building (MAR.1.04)
Programme:
10:00 – 10:30 | Registration and Coffee
10:30 – 11:00 | Welcome & Opening Remarks by Yaprak Gürsoy and Nick Baird
11:00– 12:30 | Panel Session 1: Turkish Foreign Policy: Start of a New Era in an Age of Global Change?
Emel Akçalı | The Dawn of Non-Western Agency in Global Politics and Türkiye’s New Role?
This talk discusses how we can understand the emergence of non-Western agency, which sometimes questions the universality of Western norms. Can non-Western agency instigate a transformative shift in the existing world order, and can this shift potentially result in a more advanced multipolar world, a disjointed global order, or a new form of hegemony? The talk addresses these questions in order to grasp the future of international relations and global governance, as well as the evolving roles of regional players like Türkiye in this newly forming world order.
Mustafa Kutlay | Türkiye’s Middle-Power status in Global Politics: Managing Interdependencies and Trade-offs
At a time when new centres of power are emerging, middle powers have become increasingly active in global politics. While seeking to capitalise on the emerging multipolarity, middle powers prefer to avoid taking sides and getting caught between the US and China. Türkiye is one of these actors pursuing a ‘multi-alignment’ strategy in its foreign affairs. This presentation examines Türkiye’s status in global politics. It argues that for Türkiye, multipolarity will centre more on managing interdependencies and trade-offs to avert the costs of a transactional foreign policy.
Diğdem Soyaltın Colella | Authoritarian Regime Survival and anti-West Discourse
The AKP government in Türkiye sustained its popularity despite various economic and policy crises. Our research shows that, among other institutional factors, instrumental anti-West propaganda reinforces the regime’s short-term performance legitimacy. The normative anti-Westernism works through identity-based frameworks, portraying the West as a morally corrupt civilisation, undergoing profound societal and economic decline. This is juxtaposed with Türkiye as a rising economic power and with the ethically superior image of Turkish and Muslim identities, as underscored in the context of the recent humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Özge Zihnioğlu | Civil Society in Turkish Foreign Policy: Continuities, Changes and Future Prospects
This talk discusses the transformation of civil society’s influence in Turkish foreign policy since the 2010s. Traditionally dominated by political elites and state institutions, Türkiye’s foreign policy has increasingly been incorporating civil society actors, particularly in humanitarian and development efforts. These organisations partner with government agencies to advance Türkiye’s geopolitical goals. The rise of government-organised NGOs (GONGOs) further blurred the lines between state and civil society. Highlighting both opportunities and constraints, this talk explores how civil society has become a strategic tool of soft power in Türkiye’s evolving international engagement.
12:30– 13:30 | Lunch Break
13:30 – 14:45 | Panel Session 2: Diaspora, Displacement and Collective Trauma: Policies and Dialogues of Identity Across Time and Space
Başak Kale | Navigating Integration: Refugees, Immigrants, and the Evolving Landscape of Inclusion in Türkiye
Türkiye is a hub for immigration, emigration, and transit migration, hosting millions of refugees, asylum seekers, and irregular migrants. More than 3.6 million Syrian refugees were hosted for more than a decade, with no centralised refugee integration policy. As a result, local governments, CSOs, IOs, and private actors have stepped in to provide essential services. This presentation explores these informal integration mechanisms and their impact on refugee and migrant communities. It also examines the politicisation of migration and its influence on elections and public opinion in Türkiye.
Tuğçe Bıçakçı-Syed | Collective Trauma and Contemporary Horror Cinema in Türkiye
This talk examines how Turkish horror films Küçük Kıyamet (2007) and Kaygı (2017) engage with collective trauma, drawing on Linnie Blake’s theory of horror as trauma representation. Both films contain themes of rapid urbanisation and globalisation, as well as natural and man-made disasters. Produced by ‘tacticians of resistance’, these films exemplify politically subversive Gothic texts challenging conservative neoliberalism in Türkiye. The return of repressed memories is analysed through Chris Baldick’s ‘Gothic effect’, revealing the inadequacy of current recovery policies in Türkiye.
Aslı Kandemir | ‘British Values’ from the Perspective of British-Turkish Youth
This talk explores the subjectivities of British-Turks, with a focus on youth. The Prevent Strategy and its use of Fundamental British Values (FBVs) in education were aimed at disciplining minoritised youth, especially Muslims, to promote cohesion. However, a case study of the British-Turkish community reveals that youthchallenge the disciplinary power of FBV and redefine Britishness through inclusivity, equality, good character, and friendship. They emphasise the plurality and universality of values, underscoring the significance of bottom-up approaches in defining social cohesion and British values.
14:45 – 15:00 | Break
15:00 – 15:30 | Discussion Session 3: Exploring Identity through Memory: More than a Bundle Story
Emel Sevinç in discussion with Elif Toker-Turnalar
15:30 – 15:45 | Closing Remarks for the Symposium
15:45 – 16:00 | Break
16:00 – 17:00 | BATAS Annual General Meeting (AGM)
Speaker Bios:
Nick Baird joined the Foreign Office in 1983 and had a long and illustrious career, including a posting as the Ambassador in Ankara from 2006-2009. Since leaving the FCO, he has taken up a post as group corporate affairs director of energy firm Centrica, and is also a Trustee of Kew Gardens and the President of BATAS.
Yaprak Gürsoy is the Chair of Contemporary Turkish Studies at the European Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Before her current post, she was a senior lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Aston University (2017-2021) and an Associate Professor at Istanbul Bilgi University (2009-2017). She works on Turkish domestic politics and foreign policy from a comparative perspective. She is the author of Between Military Rule and Democracy: Regime Consolidation in Greece, Turkey, and Beyond (University of Michigan Press, 2017).
Emel Akçalı is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Defence Studies Department, King’s College London. She teaches and researches about environmental geopolitics, critical security and geopolitical studies, gender, state and society and conflict in the Middle East and North Africa, and global International Relations. Her research thus far has been funded by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), British Institute in Ankara, Central European University (CEU), the Višegrad Fund, Fondation de Robert Schuman in Paris, and she has been awarded CEU Institute of Advanced Study and Aix-Marseille University Institute of Advanced Study resident fellowships for world-class foreign researchers in 2013 and 2016. She is the author of Chypre: Un enjeu geopolitique actuel (Cyprus, a contemporary geopolitical stake), published by l’Harmattan in Paris, in 2009, and she has a forthcoming book on Turkey Going Green, published by Edinburgh University Press.
Mustafa Kutlay is a senior lecturer in the Department of International Politics at City St George’s, University of London. He is also a senior scholar at the Istanbul Policy Center. His current research focuses on the Turkish political economy and foreign policy, as well as institutions and development in the Global South, and power shifts in the international order. His articles have appeared in International Affairs, Journal of Democracy, Foreign Affairs, Globalizations, Government & Opposition, Third World Quarterly, and The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, among others. His most recent book, Industrial Policy in Turkey: Rise, Retreat and Return, is published by Edinburgh University Press (co-authored with M. Toksoz and W. Hale). He occasionally writes policy reports and briefs for policy-making institutions and contributes commentaries and short opinion pieces to international media outlets.
Digdem Soyaltin-Colella is a lecturer (Assistant Professor) of Politics and Public Policy at the University of Aberdeen, UK. She is also a member of the global strategy reference group of Transparency International Berlin. Her research concentrates on the corruption and politics of corruption, mechanisms of state capture and regime survival, autocratic bureaucracies & illiberal governance, and Southeast European and Turkish politics. She contributed to the projects implemented by EU, Council of Europe, Transparency International on corruption, defence integrity and the rule of law in Türkiye and the Western Balkans. Her publications appeared in numerous high profile peer reviewed journals, including Journal of Gender Studies, Third World Quarterly, International Political Science Review, and International Spectator. She is the author of EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline (ed, Palgrave, 2022) and Europeanisation, Corruption and Good Governance in the Public Sector: The Case of Turkey (Routledge, 2017).
Özge Zihnioğlu is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Liverpool. Her research focuses on civil society, European Union civil society support, and Türkiye-EU relations, and she has published extensively on these topics. Her work has been funded by the British Academy, the British Council, ESRC, Türkiye’s Scientific and Technological Research Council and the Mercator Foundation. Zihnioğlu is the author of European Union Civil Society Policy and Turkey: A Bridge Too Far? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and EU-Turkey Relations: Civil Society and Depoliticization (Routledge, 2020), alongside numerous articles in leading academic journals. In recognition of her contributions to the field, she received the Young Scientists Award from the Science Academy (2015) and the International Relations Council Award (2018) in Türkiye. Zihnioğlu is also a member of the Carnegie Endowment’s Civic Research Network, where she provides policy analyses and reports on evolving trends in civil society to policymakers and donors.
Elif Toker-Turnalar is a researcher, lecturer, public speaker and specialist in Political Communication, Turkish Politics and Public Relations. She has an MA from Boğaziçi University in Political Science and International Relations, where she completed her thesis on “The formal role of the military in political decision making: Egypt and Turkey”, and a BA from Middlesex University in Politics, History and TEFL. At present, she holds a Lectureship post at Regent’s University, London. She is engaged with colleagues on a 10-year longitudinal study of digital literacy and the understanding of politics and news by young adults, with an emphasis on social media platforms, mainly Facebook.
Başak Kale is an Associate Professor of International Relations, Middle East Technical University, Ankara,and she is the former Chair of the European Studies Postgraduate Programme. She is also the coordinator of the Migration Research Program (METUMIR) of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence Centre for European Studies, METU. In addition to these positions, she is an independent ethics expert working for the European Commission at the Ethics and Research Integrity Sector, DG Research and Innovation. Dr Kale taught and conducted research at various institutions, including Harvard University, UC Berkeley, Boğaziçi University, University of British Columbia (UBC), Simon Fraser University and Hitotshubashi University (Tokyo). Currently, she is working with the European Studies Centre, St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford. Outside academia, she was also the founding and governing body member of Türkiye’s first migration research specialised NGO, IGAM. She is also a founding member of the Türkiye’s Refugee Council (TRC).
Tuğçe Bıçakçı-Syed is an independent literary scholar, editor, and writer based in Birmingham, UK. She holds a PhD in English (2018) and an MA in Contemporary Literary Studies (2013) from the University of Lancaster, both fully funded by the Turkish Ministry of Education. Her research focuses on the Gothic mode in Turkish literature and film, exploring its historical development in relation to ideological, cultural, and political shifts, with a strong foundation in literary and cultural theory. She has published critical essays on popular genres in Turkish literature and cinema, as well as on representations of Turkish identity in Anglophone narratives. Her recent publications include “Global Gothic 1: Islamic Gothic” in The Cambridge History of the Gothic: Volume 3 – Gothic in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and “Gothicising the Ottoman Past and Building Modern Turkey in Turkish Gothic Novels of the 1920s” in Middle Eastern Gothics: Literature, Spectral Modernities and the Restless Past (University of Wales Press, 2022).
Aslı Kandemir is a critical sociologist and an interdisciplinary researcher. She is currently working in the School of Education at the University of Birmingham on a study examining freedom of expression in English schools. Dr Kandemir holds a PhD in Sociology from Liverpool Hope University and researches ‘race’/ethnicity and immigration, education policy, and intersectional inequalities. Her forthcoming book, Tolerance and Symbolic Borders: British-Turkish Identity, Values, and Community Cohesion, is published by Bristol University Press (2025). Dr Kandemir also works on equitable mentoring and volunteers as an academic mentor to university students, academics and professionals. She is a former radio DJ and an avid capoeirista.
Emel Sevinç is a London-based writer and the founder of the ‘More Than a Bundle Story’ project, which will be featured at Hackney Museum in mid-June. Holding a degree in English and Creative Writing, and with over 15 years of teaching experience, Emel has worked with individuals from diverse backgrounds. Her work delves into themes of memory, identity, and belonging within the Turkish diaspora, reflecting on the enduring connections between family, migration, and the passage of time. Emel amplifies the rich and multifaceted narratives of the Turkish diaspora, illustrating how memories transcend borders and shape the lives of individuals and communities. In addition, Emel runs workshops through her Scribbles project, helping writers at all levels discover the art of free-flow creative writing. She is currently working on her debut novel, blending her passion for storytelling with a deep connection to her Turkish roots.
