Ayça Alemdaroğlu

Ayça Alemdaroğlu

  • Research Scholar
  • Associate Director, Program on Turkey

Encina Hall, E108
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Biography

Ayça Alemdaroğlu is the Associate Director of the Program on Turkey and a Research Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. She is a political sociologist and studies social and political inequality and change in Turkey and the Middle East.  

Ayça’s recent work examines youth politics and authoritarianism, in particular, the politics of history and emotional tactics the Justice and Development Party (AKP) uses in its effort to control, administer and recruit youth. In this work, she argues that the resilience of the AKP regime lies not only in the benefits the party has provided to previously disadvantaged groups and its coercive methods towards dissent but also lies in the party’s articulation of political differences and its mobilization of emotions through intermediary channels between the party and the people.  In “Dialectics of Reform and Repression: Unpacking Turkey’s Authoritarian ‘Turn,’” she analyzes the dynamics and dialectics of reform and repression in the last two decades. Instead of reading contemporary Turkey as a case of relapse from reform into repression, as many commentators do, the article shows that reform and repression have been concomitant and complementary modes of the AKP governments. Her previous publications examined nationalism and eugenics in Turkey in the 1930s and 1940s, generational change and young women's negotiations with patriarchy, changing forms of urban segregation and low-wage workers’ experiences of social and urban mobilityand the impact of neoliberalism on Turkish higher education.

She is the co-editor of Thinking about Kurds in Dark Times: New Perspectives on violence and resistance (University of Syracuse Press 2022); Confronting the New Turkey, Middle East Report Iss. 288; and Kurdistan: One and Many, Middle East Report Iss. 295.

Before coming to the FSI, Ayça was a Research Professor in sociology and the Associate Director of the Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program at Northwestern University. Between 2011 and 2015, she was a postdoctoral fellow in Anthropology and a lecturer at Stanford University. She has taught courses on gender and sexuality, cities and inequality, and politics and protest with a focus on Iran, Egypt, and Turkey.  

She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Cambridge, her MA in political science from Bilkent University, and her BSc. degrees in political science and sociology from the Middle East Technical University,

Currently, she serves on the editorial boards of Sociological Theory and MERIP. 

publications

Journal Articles
September 2023

The University in the Making of Authoritarian Turkey

Author(s)
cover link The University in the Making of Authoritarian Turkey
Book Chapters
September 2023

Turkey’s Strategic Partnership with China: A Feminist Recount

Author(s)
cover link Turkey’s Strategic Partnership with China: A Feminist Recount
Books
January 2023

Kurds in Dark Times: New Perspectives on Violence and Resistance in Turkey

Author(s)
cover link Kurds in Dark Times: New Perspectives on Violence and Resistance in Turkey

In The News

Presidential Candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu Holds Campaign Rally In Tekirdag
Q&As

Challenges and Opportunities in Turkey's 2023 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections

In this Q&A, Ayça Alemdaroğlu, Associate Director of the Program on Turkey at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, discusses the key issues and their implications for the country's future.
cover link Challenges and Opportunities in Turkey's 2023 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections
Commentary

Turkey Heads To Vote On Role Of Prime Minister

cover link Turkey Heads To Vote On Role Of Prime Minister
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech in Ankara on Sept. 5, 2019
Commentary

Turkey’s Generation Z Turns Against Erdogan

The Turkish leader tried to mold a generation of pious followers. Instead, the country’s youth could bring about his final defeat.
cover link Turkey’s Generation Z Turns Against Erdogan