Brexit suporters, brexiteers, in central London holding banners campaigning to leave the European Union on January 15, 2019.

ECPS Youth Seminars — Political Psychology of Populism: Groups, Hierarchies and Emotions (Apr.4, 2022)  

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 Date/Time: Monday, April 4, 2022 / 18:00-19:00 (CET)

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Moderator

Celia Miray Yesil

Speaker

Dr. Sandra Obradovic 

At this ECPS Youth Seminar, Dr. Sandra Obradovic is going to present the findings of a research paper titled “Understanding the psychological appeal of populism” which is jointly written by Obradovic, Séamus A. Power and Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington. According to the paper, psychology can play an important role in expanding our understanding of the demand-side of populism by revealing its underlying relational logic. Social psychological perspectives on populism are beginning to show how: 1) the division between us (‘the good people’) and them (‘the corrupt elites’/ ‘foreign others’) taps into core intergroup dynamics, 2) economic and cultural processes are construed in terms of basic status concerns, and 3) collective emotions become mobilised through political communication. Taking these insights into consideration, the authors reflect on psychology’s contribution to the study of populism thus far and chart out an ambitious role for it at the heart of this interdisciplinary field.

Dr. Sandra Obradovic is a social and political psychologist in the UK. She is a lecturer in Psychology at the Open University and a researcher at the Electoral Psychology Observatory at the London School of Economics. Her work examines how group boundaries are constructed and defined, and their impact on identities, intergroup relations, and political attitudes. In bringing this focus to research on populism she works with colleagues in Denmark and the UK, examining and comparing populist and mainstream rhetoric and highlighting the role of hierarchies, emotions, and temporalities in constructing the common people as under threat. At the Electoral Psychology Observatory, she works with colleagues on research on electoral atmosphere and hostility: how voters experience elections and its impact on interpersonal relationships and overall satisfaction with democracy.

Celia Miray Yesil is a ECPS Youth Group member, co-director of Voice of Youth (VoY) and master’s student of International Political Economy at the Warwick University. She gained her undergraduate degree in European Politics at King’s College London, studying the historical background of European nations and its relationships with the rest of the world.  In her undergraduate dissertation, Miray looked at the populist ‘language’ of the far-right leaders Marine Le Pen and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. As for her master’s dissertation, Miray is considering focussing more on the impact of far-right populism in foreign policy, particularly looking at the political language and communication of populist leaders in the international political economy.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the opening of the Natural Gas Pipeline (Turkstream) in Istanbul, Turkey on November 19, 2018.

ECPS Book Talks — The Turkish Malaise – A Critical Essay (Mar.26, 2022)

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Date/Time: Saturday, March 26, 2022 / 5 PM (CET)

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Speaker
Dr. Cengiz Aktar

Discussant
Dr. Dirk Rochtus

Author Dr. Cengiz Aktar will discuss his book The Turkish Malaise – A Critical Essay (Transnational Press, London, 2021) with Dr. Dirk Rochtus of KU Leuven.

As most agree that no one can predict today how Turkey will evolve; which spirit will mark the country’s future. Who could have predicted the turn it has taken in recent years after having been a rising star in the early 2000s, a candidate for the European club, “the” model to follow, especially for Muslim countries seeking justice and prosperity? The failure of its candidacy, in which Europe has its share, has been the prelude to its progressive de-Westernisation accompanied by bellicosity on all fronts, at home and abroad. Western countries are trying to manage this “Turkish crisis” between incomprehension and blind detachment, between appeasement and complicity, between containment and apprehension of seeing this large country decompose in its turn. As a scholar who has witnessed Turkey’s never-ending transformation, Dr. Cengiz Aktar provides analytical tools to understand the split of a society between state, nation, religion, imperial myth and the West in this concise and well-documented study.  

Dr. Cengiz Aktar is an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Athens. He is a former director at the United Nations specializing in asylum policies. He is known to be one of the leading advocates of Turkey’s integration into the EU. He was the Chair of European Studies at Bahçeşehir University-Istanbul.

In 1999, he initiated a civil initiative for Istanbul’s candidacy for the title of European Capital of Culture. Istanbul successfully held the title in 2010. He also headed the initiative called “European Movement 2002” which pressured lawmakers to speed up political reforms necessary to begin the negotiation phase with the EU. In December 2008, he developed the idea of an online apology campaign addressed to Armenians and supported by a number of Turkish intellectuals as well as over 32,000 Turkish citizens.

In addition to EU integration policies, Dr. Aktar’s research focuses on the politics of memory regarding ethnic and religious minorities, the history of political centralism, and international refugee law.

Dr. Dirk Rochtus is an Associated Professor of International Politics and German History at the KU Leuven/Campus Antwerpen and a senior fellow at the Zentrum für Europäische Integrationsforschung (www.zei.de) of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. He is former vice-chief of Cabinet of the Flemish Minister of Foreign Affairs (2005-2007). In 2007 he was awarded the ‘Bundesverdienstkreuz’ (Federal Cross of Merit) of the Federal Republic of Germany.

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Nested dolls depicting populist politicians Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the counter of souvenirs in Moscow.

ECPS Youth Seminars — Populism and personality: How voters perceive the dark personality of populist leaders (Mar.10, 2022)

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Date/Time: Thursday, March 10, 2022 / 18:00-19:00 (CET) 

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Moderator

Celia Miray Yesil

Speaker

Alessandro Nai

At this ECPS Youth Seminar, Professor Alessandro Nai, will present results from his recent research on how voters perceive the (dark) personality of political candidates. Who likes dark politicians? His research article investigates whether voters showcasing populist attitudes are more likely to appreciate candidates that score high on dark personality traits (narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism) and low on agreeableness. 

Professor Nai’s investigation leverages evidence from an international survey that includes expert-ratings for personality profile of 49 top candidates having competed in 22 national elections, matched with standardized survey data gathered in the aftermath of those same elections that include self-ratings of populist attitudes and candidate likeability (CSES data, N = 70,690). Even controlling for important covariates that drive candidate likeability (e.g., the ideological distance between the voter and the candidate), the results strongly confirm the expectations: populist voters are significantly more likely to appreciate candidates high on the Dark triad and low on agreeableness. The effects, especially for (low) agreeableness, are quite substantial.

Alessandro Nai is Assistant Professor of Political Communication at the Department of Communication Science, University of Amsterdam. Prior to this he was Senior Research Associate at the Electoral Integrity Project (University of Sydney) and Assistant Professor / Lecturer at the University of Geneva, where he obtained his Ph.D. in political science. His research focuses on the drivers and consequences of election campaigning, political communication, and the psychology of voting behaviour.

His recent work deals more specifically with the dark sides of politics, the use of negativity and incivility in election campaigns in a comparative perspective, and the (dark) personality traits of political figures. He is currently directing a research project that maps the use of negative campaigning in elections across the world. His recent work has been published in journals such as Political Psychology, European Journal of Political Research, West European Politics, International Journal of Press/Politics, American Politics Research, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Personality and Individual Differences, Electoral Studies, Journal of Political Marketing, and more. He recently co-edited the volumes New Perspectives on Negative Campaigning: Why Attack Politics Matters (ECPR Press, 2015, with Annemarie S. Walter) and Election Watchdogs (Oxford University Press, 2017, with Pippa Norris). He is currently Associate Editor of the Journal of Social and Political Psychology.

Celia Miray Yesil is a ECPS Youth Group member, co-director of Voice of Youth (VoY) and master’s student of International Political Economy at the Warwick University. She gained her undergraduate degree in European Politics at King’s College London, studying the historical background of European nations and its relationships with the rest of the world.  In her undergraduate dissertation, Miray looked at the populist ‘language’ of the far-right leaders Marine Le Pen and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. She carried out a comparative discourse analysis of the political speeches of the leaders, focusing on how they have combined nationalist ideology into their populist discourse, emphasising on three main features: historical nostalgia of the nation, the loss of identity and a hostility and hatred towards EU institutions. As for her master’s dissertation, Miray is considering focussing more on the impact of far-right populism in foreign policy, particularly looking at the political language and communication of populist leaders in the international political economy. 

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Casa Pound, an Italian neo-fascist extreme right-wing political association, held a manifestation in honor of fallen comrades in Milan on April 29, 2012. Photo: Eugenio Marongiu.

Mapping European Populism – Panel #2: The peculiarities and commonalities of the populist politics in Southern Europe: The cases of Greece, Italy, Spain & Portugal (Mar.31, 2022)

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Date/Time: Thursday, March 31, 2022 /15:00-17:00 (CET)

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Moderator

Daphne Halikiopoulou (Professor of Comparative Politics, the University of Reading).

Speakers

“Greece: A case of populism in decline?” by Sofia Vasilopoulou (Professor of Politics, the University of York).

“Multiple populism in Italy between opposition and government” by Oscar Mazzoleni (Professor of Political Science, Institute of Political, Historical and International Studies, University of Lausanne).

“Podemos and Vox: Opportunities and challenges posed by left- and right-wing populism in Spain” by Andrés Santana (Professor of Political Science, Autonomous University of Madrid).

“Support for Right-Wing Populism in Portugal: Protest or Deep-Rooted Attitudes?” by Susana Salgado (Professor of Political Communication, Principal Researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon).

Q&A Session

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Participants of nationalist and anti-Islamic demonstration organized by far-right organisations use smoke races, hold banners in Warsaw, Poland on April 10, 2016. Photo: Wiola Wiaderek.

Mapping European Populism (ECPS Monthly Panel Series #1): Populist authoritarian tendencies in Eastern and Central Europe, and challenges to the EU (Feb.24, 2022)

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Date/Time: Thursday, February 24, 2022 / 15:00-17:00 (CET)

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Moderator

Boguslawa Dobek-Ostrowska (Professor, the chair of the Department of Communication and Journalism, the Institute of Political Science, University of Wrocław, Poland).

Speakers

“Populism in Poland 2015-2021. A short journey from theory to praxis,” by Dominika Kasprowicz (Professor of political science, the Institute of Journalism, Media and Social Communication, Jagiellonian University, Poland).

“The Orbán regime after 12 years, before the April 2022 general elections” by Zoltan Adam (Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Economic Policy and Labour Economics, Institute of Economic and Public Policy, Corvinus University of Budapest

“Scanning the far right in Croatia and Serbia” by Vassilis Petsinis (The University of Tartu, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies).

“Comparison of authoritarian and populist tendencies in the Czech Republic and Slovakia” by Miroslav Mareš (Professor, the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University).

Q&A Session

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ECPS Panel: Religious Populism, Cyberspace and Digital Authoritarianism in Asia – The Cases of India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia & Turkey (Feb.2, 2022)

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Date: February 2, 2022

Time: 11:00-13:00 (CET)

Moderator: Dr. Simon Watmough

Speakers: Dr. Ihsan Yılmaz, Dr. Raja M. Ali Saleem, Dr. Mahmoud Pargoo, 

Dr. Syaza Shukri, Idznursham Ismail & Kainat Shakil

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Turkey, Pakistan, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia span one of the longest continuously inhabited regions of the world. Centuries of cultural infusion have ensured these societies are highly heterogeneous. As plural polities, they are ripe for the kind of freedoms that liberal democracy can guarantee. However, despite having multi-party electoral systems, these countries have recently been negatively influenced by populist authoritarian political leaders, parties and movements. Our panelists have explored in their most recent report published by the ECPS the unique nexus between faith and populism in five Asian countries and offer an insight into how cyberspace and offline politics have become highly intertwined to create a hyper-reality in which socio-political events are taking place. 

The report focuses on the role of religious populism in digital space as a catalyst for undemocratic politics in these five Asian countries they have selected as their case studies. The focus on the West Asian and South Asian cases was an opportunity to examine authoritarian religious populists in power, whereas the East Asian countries showcased powerful authoritarian religious populist forces outside parliament. The situational analysis from five countries indicates that religion’s role in digital authoritarianism is quite evident, adding to the layer of nationalism. Most of the leaders in power use religious justifications for curbs on the internet. This evident “religious populism” seems to be a major driver of policy changes that are limiting civil liberties in the name of “the people.” In the end, the reasons for restricting digital space are not purely religious but draw on religious themes with populist language in a mixed and hybrid fashion. 

Program

(11:00-11:05) Welcome speech on the behalf of ECPS by Simon Watmough

(11:05-11:15) Introduction of the report by Ihsan Yilmaz

(11:15-11:25) Cyberspace, authoritarianism, and religious populism by Mahmoud Pargoo

(11:25-11:35) Indian Case by Raja M. Ali Saleem

(11:35-11:45) Indonesian Case by Idznursham Ismail

(11:45-11:55) Pakistani Case by Kainat Shakil

(11:55-12:05) Malaysian Case by Syaza Shukri

(12:05-12:15) Turkish Case by Ihsan Yilmaz

(12:15-13:00) Q&A Session

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Short Bios

Ihsan Yilmaz is Research Professor and Chair at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADI), Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. He is also a Visiting Research Associate of the Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture, Regent’s Park College, The University of Oxford, and a Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow at the ECPS. Yilmaz has conducted research on religion and politics; authoritarianism; digital authoritarianism; populism in Turkey, Pakistan, and Indonesia and beside of other research subjects. 

Raja M. Ali Saleem is an Associate Professor (Public Policy) at the Centre for Public Policy and Governance at Forman Christian College in Lahore, Pakistan. He is a former civil servant and has more than 20 years of diverse experience in government and academia. His research focuses on religious nationalism, the relationship between church and state, the politics of Muslim-majority countries, especially Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, local governments, public financial management, the role of the military in politics, and democratic consolidation. His first book, State, Nationalism, and Islamization: Historical Analysis of Turkey and Pakistan, was published by Palgrave-Macmillan in 2017.

Mahmoud Pargoo is a research fellow at Deakin University (Melbourne) and a visiting fellow at the AI-enabled Processes (AIP) Research Centre, Macquarie University in Sydney. Mahmoud is the author of Secularization of Islam in Post-Revolutionary Iran(Routledge, 2021) and lead-author of Presidential Elections in Iran: Islamic Idealism since the Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2021).

Syaza Shukri is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences, International Islamic University Malaysia. Her area of specialization is in comparative politics, specifically in democratization and politics in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Her current research interests include populism, identity politics, inter-ethnic relations, political Islam, geopolitics, and gender studies, specifically in Muslim-majority contexts. Among her recent works is “Populism and Muslim Democracies,” published in Asian Politics & Policy.

Idznursham Ismail, the founder of stratsea.com, possesses a master’s degree in Strategic Studies and a First-Class Honours in Biological Sciences from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) Nanyang Technological University (NTU), respectively. After his stint as a Research Analyst at the Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR, RSIS), he resided in Indonesia for numerous years, gaining experience in organizations such as The Jakarta Post, the Wahid Foundation, and PAKAR. He specializes in security-related issues, particularly terrorism and unconventional weapons. His current research includes non-traditional security themes such as public health.

Kainat Shakil is a non-resident Research Associate at the ECPS. Her research explores populism from the perspectives of religion, emotions, and gender. The regional focus of her work is mainly Pakistan and demographically Muslim-majority countries. Previously, she was a researcher at The Shahid Javed Burki Institute of Public Policy at NetSol (BIPP)— a Pakistan-based think-tank— where her work focused on reviewing public policies from a people-centric perspective. Before working as a full-time researcher, she was an Erasmus research scholar at Middlesex University London and the recipient of the US State Department’s cultural scholarship, Global UGRAD.

Symposium

The First Annual International Symposium on The Future Course of Populism in the Post-pandemic Era: The State of Globalisation, Multilateral Governance, and Democracy (Feb. 18, 2022)

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Morning Session

10:00 AM-12:30 PM (Central European Time)

Moderator: Eser Karakas (Professor of economics, Strasbourg University, ECPS Advisory Board Member and Senior Research Fellow).

Opening Remarks 

Sir Graham Watson (Honorary President – ECPS).

Keynote Speech

“Rehabilitating globalisation, repositioning populism, proportioning Pandemics – Does law have a place?” Mark Findlay  (Professor, Director, Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Governance, Singapore Management University. The author of Globalization, Populism, Pandemics and the Law: The Anarchy and the Ecstasy, Edward Elgar publishing, 2021).

Panel -I- 

Populism and governance in the time of pandemic

11:30 AM-12:30 PM (Central European Time)

“Populist leaders, the economy, and the pandemic: What can we expect?” Dr. Manuel Funke (International finance and macroeconomics, Kiel Institute for the World Economy).

“Will the pandemic bring an end to populism? What are the lessons from the pandemic in a comparative perspective?” Dr. Aline Burni (Political science, German Development Institute).

 

Afternoon Session

Panel -II-

Pandemic of authoritarianism/populism: The state of democratic institutions, rights and freedoms

14:30-16:00 PM (Central European Time)

Moderator: Werner Pascha (Emeritus professor of economics, Institute of East Asian Studies, Duisburg-Essen University).

“The need for multilateral institutions against global challenges: The impact of populism on Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation 25 years after the Barcelona Process.” Eckart Woertz (Director, GIGA Institute for Middle East Studies
Professor for Contemporary History and Politics of the Middle East at the University of Hamburg).

“Future course of global governance under the rising hybrid regimes that cohabitate with populism.” Neil Robinson (Professor of comparative politics, the University of Limerick).

“Is there populism in Japan? A closer look at the oldest Asian democracy.” Axel Klein (Professor of Social sciences on East Asia / Japanese politics, Institute of East Asian Studies, Duisburg-Essen University).

 

Panel -III-

What’s next in a post-COVID-19 world?

16:00-17:30 PM (Central European Time)

Moderator: Naim Kapucu (Pegasus professor, School of Public Administration & School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs, University of Central Florida).

“Post-neoliberalism in Europe? How economic discourses have changed through COVID-19 pandemic.” Jens Maeße (Institute of Sociology, Justus-Liebig-University Gießen).

“An analysis of populist leaders’ responses to Covid-19.” Dr. Brett Meyer (Global populism and voting behaviour in advanced democracies. Tony Blair Institute for Global Change).

“Populist and non-populist governance performance during the COVID pandemic and prospects for democracy in the West moving forward.” Sheri Berman (Professor of political science. Department of Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University).

Closing Remarks

Overall evaluation and takeaways from the symposium

Hercules Millas (ECPS Advisory Board Member).

 

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AfD demo with slogan Stop Islamization and counter demonstration of the Left in Luetten Klein in Rostock, Germany on May 14, 2018. AfD, Alternative for Germany, is a right wing political party in Germany.

ECPS Book Talks – Liberal Roots of Far Right Activism: The Anti-Islamic Movement in the 21st Century (Jan.14, 2022)

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Author Dr. Lars Erik Berntzen will discuss his book Liberal Roots of Far Right Activism – The Anti-Islamic Movement in the 21st Century with Dr. Aaron Winter. 

This book explores the anti-Islamic turn and expansion of the far right in Western Europe, North America and beyond from 2001 and onwards. Driven by terror attacks and other moral shocks, the anti-Islamic cause has undergone four waves of transnational expansion in the period since 2001. The leaders and intellectuals involved have varied backgrounds, many coming from the left, uniting historically opposed sets of values under their banner of a civilizational struggle against Islam. 

The findings presented in this book indicate that anti-Islamic initiatives in Western Europe and the United States form a transnational movement and subculture characterized by a fragile balance between liberal and authoritarian values. The author draws on a broad array of data sources and methods, including network analysis and sentiment analysis, to analyze the impact of the anti-Islamic expansion and turn at a macro level, and the theoretical implications for our understanding of the current far right flowing from this. Offering an overview of anti-Islamic activism, the book explores the background of their leaders and ideologues, provides an in-depth look at their ideology, online organizational networks, and the views expressed by their online members as well as which emotions and messages continue to drive their mobilization.

Date and Time: Thursday, January 14, 2022, 6 PM (CET) 

Please register here!.. 

Speakers 

Dr. Lars Erik Berntzen is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen and Affiliate Researcher at the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX). He received his doctoral degree in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy in 2018. His work covers the far right, political violence, and mass polarization. 

In addition to “Liberal Roots of Far Right Activism: The Anti-Islamic Movement in the 21st Century”, Berntzen has written and co-authored several peer reviewed articles, book chapters and popular publications, such as “The Collective Nature of Lone Wolf Terrorism: Anders Behring Breivik and the Anti-Islamic Social Movement” (2014), “Anti-Islamic PEGIDA Beyond Germany: Explaining Differences in Mobilisation” (2016), “How elite politicization of terror impacts sympathies for partisans: Radical right versus social democrats” (2020) and most recently “Monster or Hero? Far-right Responses to Anders Behring Breivik and the July 22, 2011 Terrorist Attacks” (2021).

Dr. Aaron Winter is Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of East London. His research is on the far-right with a focus on racism, mainstreaming and violence. He is co-editor of Discourses and Practices of Terrorism: Interrogating Terror (Routledge 2010), Reflexivity in Criminological Research: Experiences with the Powerful and the Powerless (Palgrave 2014), Historical Perspectives on Organised Crime and Terrorism (Routledge 2018) and Researching the Far Right: Theory, Method and Practice (Routledge 2020), and co-author, with Aurelien Mondon, of Reactionary Democracy: How Racism and the Populist Far Right Became Mainstream (Verso 2020). 

He has published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Identities, Sociological Research Online, Women and Performance and Journal of Political Ideologies, and been interviewed by BBC, NBC, LBC, The Times, The Telegraph, NewStatesman, Vice, Wired, Gara, Radio France, Voice of Islam, and Dundee Courier. He is also a co-editor of the journal Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power and the Manchester University Press (MUP) book series Racism, Resistance and Social Change. 

Recently-built Taksim Mosque and Republic Monument in Istanbul's Taksim Square symbolises new and old Turkey. Photo: Sener Dagasan

ECPS Book Talks — Creating the Desired Citizen: Ideology, State and Islam in Turkey (Sep. 14, 2021)

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Author Dr. Ihsan Yilmaz will discuss his book Creating the Desired Citizen: Ideology, State and Islam in Turkey (Cambridge University Press, 2021). The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Simon P. Watmough.

For decades after the declaration of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the Turkish state promoted the idea of a desired citizen. The Kemalist state treated these citizens as superior, with full rights; but the ‘others’, those outside this desired citizenship, were either tolerated or considered undesirable citizens. And this caused the marginalization of ethnic and religious minorities, religious Muslims and leftists alike. 

In his book, Ihsan Yilmaz shows how historical traumas, victimhood, insecurities, anxieties, fears and siege mentality have negatively impacted on and radicalised the nation-building projects of the two competing hegemonic ideologies/regimes (those of Ataturk and Erdogan) and their treatment of majority and minority ethnic, religious and political groups. Yilmaz reveals the significant degree of overlap between the desired, undesired citizen and tolerated citizen categories of these two regimes, showing how both regimes aimed to create a perception of a homogenous Turkish nation.

Date and Time: Tue, September 14, 2021, 8:00 PM CEST

Registration link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0sce6trTktGNTnFXPWesNFsaX-tQjz367O

Speakers

Ihsan Yilmaz is Research Professor and Chair of Islamic Studies and Intercultural Dialogue at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADI), Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. He has conducted research on nation-building; citizenship; ethnic-religious-political identities and their securitization (Middle East, Pakistan, Indonesia); minority-majority relations (Australia, Turkey, the UK, and the USA); socio-legal affairs, identities, belonging and political participation of Muslim minorities in the West (the UK, Australia, and the USA); Islam-state-society relations in the majority and minority contexts; global Islamic movements; political Islam in a comparative perspective; Turkish politics; authoritarianization; Turkish diasporas (the UK, Australia, the USA); transnationalism; intergroup contact (Australia); and politics of victimhood (Australia, Turkey).

Dr. Yilmaz was a professor of political science at Istanbul Fatih University (2008-2016). He was a lecturer in law, social sciences, and politics at SOAS, University of London (2001-2008) where he taught “Islamic Law and Society,” “Legal Systems of Asia and Africa,” and “Turkish Politics” at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Before SOAS, he was a fellow at the Center for Islamic Studies, University of Oxford (1999-2001) where he worked on Muslim political participation in the UK and unofficial Muslim laws of young Muslims in the West.

Simon P. Watmough is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Leipzig in Germany and a non-resident research fellow in the research program on authoritarianism at ECPS. He was awarded his Ph.D. from the European University Institute in April 2017 with a dissertation titled “Democracy in the Shadow of the Deep State: Guardian Hybrid Regimes in Turkey and Thailand.” Dr. Watmough’s research interests sit at the intersection of global and comparative politics and include varieties of post-authoritarian states, the political sociology of the state, the role of the military in regime change, and the foreign policy of post-authoritarian states in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. 

His work has been published in Politics, Religion & Ideology, Urban Studies and Turkish Review. Since 2005, Dr. Watmough has taught international relations, diplomacy, foreign policy, and security studies, as well as Middle Eastern history at universities in Australia and Europe. In 2010–11 he was a research fellow at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the London School of Economics. He has held Visiting Scholar positions at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul (2012), the University of Queensland (2013), Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand (2014) and the University of Graz (2017). In addition to his academic publications, he is also a regular contributor to The Conversation and other media outlets.

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The Closing of Civic Spaces in the Time of Terrorism in Nigeria (June 17, 2021)

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While debates on the effects of the post-9/11 counterterrorism measures (CTMs) on civil society organizations (CSOs) exist, there is a paucity of data on how CTMs are shaping the spaces and actors of CSOs in Nigeria. During this ECPS seminar, Dr. Emeka Thaddues Njoku will discuss CSOs’ perceptions on the effects of counterterrorism measures, the countermeasures that CSOs are taking, and the government’s views on the security threat posed by CSOs with Saskia Brechenmacher. 

Date and Time: Thursday, June 17, 2021, 19:00 CEST

Register Here

Speakers 

Dr. Emeka Thaddues Njoku is currently a 2021-2023 Newton International Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society. In 2019-2020, he was selected as a Post-doctoral Fellow for the American Council of Learned Societies (African Humanities Program), New York, USA. In 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 he held two pre-doctoral fellowships of the Social Science Research Council’s Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa program. Njoku was also a 2017 Fellow of the Brown International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARI), Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, Providence, USA. 

Dr. Njoku’s research focuses on the intersection of civil society organizations and security governance, particularly post-9/11 international and state-level counterterrorism policies and practices. He won several research/travel grants from the Institute of International Education, American Political Science Association, Centennial Center for Political Science & Public Affairs of the American Political Science Association, Makarere Institute of Social Research and the University of Ibadan Postgraduate College. 

Njoku’s work has appeared in VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Development in Practice, Development Policy Review, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly and a forthcoming edited book by Manchester University Press.

Saskia Brechenmacher is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Cambridge and a fellow in Carnegie’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program, where her research focuses on gender, civil society, and democratic governance. Prior to joining Carnegie, Brechenmacher worked as a graduate researcher at the World Peace Foundation in Boston, and co-led a research project on corruption and state legitimacy in Uganda for the Institute for Human Security at Tufts University. She has advised major governmental and private funders on strategies to protect and defend civic space in countries experiencing democratic backsliding. 

Brechenmacher’s writing has been published in the National Interest, the Hill, New America Weekly, Open Democracy, and elsewhere. Brechenmacher is a graduate of Carnegie’s James C. Gaither Junior Fellows Program, a 2017 Atlantik-Brücke Young Leader, and a Humanity in Action Senior Fellow. She also gained experience at Carnegie Europe in Brussels, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in London, and the EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy in Prague.