I am a researcher focusing on democracy, human rights and migration. I completed my PhD in Political Science at the University of Toronto where I specialized in comparative politics and international relations.
Previously, I was a Doctoral Research Fellow at the Citizen Lab in the Munk School of Global Affairs working on issues at the intersection of cybersecurity, democracy, and human rights. My research focused mainly on digital transnational repression and disinformation campaigns by authoritarian states.
My research generally examines the dynamics of global migration and its social, political, and legal consequences. In my dissertation, I studied home and host state policy responses to migration from a comparative perspective shedding light on the dynamics that shape immigrant political behavior, and how immigrants respond to policies and practices by their authoritarian home states.
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 research was supported by the Joint Initiative for German and European Studies, the Trudeau Centre for Peace, Conflict, and Justice, and the R.F. Harney Program in Ethnic, Immigration, and Pluralism Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.
Recent Publications
Report. “NO ESCAPE: The Weaponization of Gender for the Purposes of Digital Transnational Repression” with Noura Aljizawi, Siena Anstis, Marcus Michaelsen, Veronica Arroyo, Shaila Baran, Maria Bikbulatova, Camila Franco, Arzu Geybulla, Muetter Iliqud, Nicola Lawford, Émilie LaFlèche, Gabby Lim, Levi Meletti, Maryam Mirza, Zoe Panday, Claire Posno, Zoë Reichert, Berhan Taye, and Angela Yang (2024).
Citizen Lab.
Journal Article. ‘Youth responses to state-manufactured diaspora mobilization: Turkey’s diaspora governance and the politics of selective engagement.' with Bahar Baser (2024).
Globalizations.
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.