Dr. Mehmet Efe Caman

Dr. Mehmet Efe Caman has been working at the Political Science Department of Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) since 2015. Previously, he worked in Germany at the Centre for Turkish Studies of Essen University (1998) and Augsburg University (2005-2006) before working as a professor at several universities in Turkey. He was also Department Head of the Political Science Department and the Dean of the School of Economics and Administrative Sciences of Turkish-German-University in Istanbul before immigrating to Canada.

Caman studied at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet München (LMU) and Universität Augsburg (Augsburg University, Bavaria, Germany) and earned his combined B.A./M.A. (Magister Artium) degree in 1998 from Augsburg University as a Friedrich-Ebert scholar with honours. In 2005, he obtained his Ph.D. as a Bavarian State Elite Research Doctoral Scholar (BayEFG) at Augsburg University with Summa Cum Laude.

His current research focuses on authoritarianism, democratization, and human rights as well as on Turkish politics in comparative politics and international political contexts. He is broadly interested in democratic decay, current human rights issues in Turkey, and the political justification mechanisms of semi-authoritarian regimes. Dr. Caman’s previous research concentrates on the shift of Turkish foreign policy after the Cold War. He published a book (WVB Verlag, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek link: http://d-nb.info/976194791) based on his Ph.D. research on Turkish foreign policy as well as numerous book chapters and scholarly articles in English, German, and Turkish about topics related to post-Cold War Turkish foreign policy’s new orientations as well as Turkish regional policy. He has also published on the European Union’s foreign, expansion, and energy policies in the Turkish context. His recent research investigated why the Turkish opposition accepted the regime’s discourse in the process of democratic decay. He has been a frequent media contributor and op-ed writer.