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Outputs (14)

Limits of autocratisation: actors and institutions of democratic resistance and opposition (2025)
Journal Article
Yabanci, B., Akkoyunlu, K., & Öktem, K. (2025). Limits of autocratisation: actors and institutions of democratic resistance and opposition. Third World Quarterly, 46(2), 97-116. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2025.2462248

As autocratisation gains global momentum, research on democratic resistance has expanded significantly. This introductory article to Limits of Autocratisation examines the actors, institutions, and practices that challenge, resist, or inadvertently e... Read More about Limits of autocratisation: actors and institutions of democratic resistance and opposition.

Guardianship and Democracy in Iran and Turkey: Tutelary Consolidation, Popular Contestation (2024)
Book
Akkoyunlu, F. K. (2024). Guardianship and Democracy in Iran and Turkey: Tutelary Consolidation, Popular Contestation. Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781399506120

This book offers the first comparative study of the foundations, consolidation and contestation of regime guardianship in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Turkey. For decades, the military in Turkey and the clergy in Iran acted as the... Read More about Guardianship and Democracy in Iran and Turkey: Tutelary Consolidation, Popular Contestation.

Blood gambit: how autocratizing populists fuel ethnic conflict to reverse election setbacks – evidence from Turkey and Israel (2024)
Journal Article
Akkoyunlu, K., & Sarfati, Y. (2025). Blood gambit: how autocratizing populists fuel ethnic conflict to reverse election setbacks – evidence from Turkey and Israel. Democratization, 32(2), 538-560. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2024.2381686

Through a comparative study of Turkey and Israel, this article highlights a specific strategy that autocratizing populist incumbents in ethnically divided societies utilize when they face election setbacks. A “blood gambit” entails fomenting violent... Read More about Blood gambit: how autocratizing populists fuel ethnic conflict to reverse election setbacks – evidence from Turkey and Israel.

Brazil’s Stealth Military Intervention (2021)
Journal Article
Akkoyunlu, K., & Lima, J. A. (2021). Brazil’s Stealth Military Intervention. Journal of Politics in Latin America, 14(1), 31-54. https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X211039860

Between 2016 and 2020, a group of activist generals successfully plotted the Brazilian military's gradual return to the political center stage with powers unseen since the dictatorship. They achieved this without formally breaking the law, suspending... Read More about Brazil’s Stealth Military Intervention.

Efficiency, Merit and Privilege: Public Administration Reforms in Brazil and Turkey (2021)
Journal Article
Akkoyunlu, F. K. (2021). Efficiency, Merit and Privilege: Public Administration Reforms in Brazil and Turkey. Revista do Serviço Público (Impresso), 72(1), 200-231. https://doi.org/10.21874/rsp.v72i01.3302

The Brazilian and Turkish public administrations display a mixture of patrimonial, traditional bureaucratic and managerial characteristics. This patchwork is a result of more than a century of disjointed reform attempts to address chronic institution... Read More about Efficiency, Merit and Privilege: Public Administration Reforms in Brazil and Turkey.

Kemalism and the Republican People’s Party (CHP) (2019)
Book Chapter
Oran, B., & Akkoyunlu, F. K. (2019). Kemalism and the Republican People’s Party (CHP). In E. Özyürek, G. Özpınar, & E. Altındiş (Eds.), Authoritarianism and Resistance in Turkey: Conversations on Democratic and Social Challenges (11-18). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76705-5_2

From the late 18th century onward, the twin revolutions of industrialization and nationalism posed existential threats to multireligious, multiethnic, multicultural territorial empires like those of the Hapsburgs and the Ottomans. During this period,... Read More about Kemalism and the Republican People’s Party (CHP).

Existential insecurity and the making of a weak authoritarian regime in Turkey (2016)
Journal Article
Akkoyunlu, K., & Öktem, K. (2016). Existential insecurity and the making of a weak authoritarian regime in Turkey. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 16(4), 505-527. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2016.1253225

This paper seeks to explain Turkey’s rapid de-democratization from the conceptual perspective of existential insecurity, which accounts for the unwillingness of incumbents to share or relinquish power. The Kemalist era, the multi-party period and the... Read More about Existential insecurity and the making of a weak authoritarian regime in Turkey.