Evren Balta

Evren Balta is a Professor of Political Science at Özyeğin University in Istanbul, Turkey. Her articles appeared in journals such as Party Politics, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Sociology, and in many edited books in Turkish, English, and French. She is the author of Politics of the Future (with Fuat Keyman, Ayrinti Publications, 2022), The American Passport in Turkey: National Citizenship in the Age of Transnationalism (with O Altan-Olcay, UPenn, 2020), Age of Uneasiness (İletisim Publications, 2019), and Global Security Complex (İletisim Publications, 2012). She is the editor of Neighbors with Suspicion: Dynamics of Turkish-Russian Relations (with G. Ozcan and B. Besgul, İletisim Publications, 2017), Introduction to Global Politics (Iletisim Publications, 2014), and Military, State and Politics in Turkey (with I. Akca, Bilgi University Publications, 2010). Her book The American Passport in Turkey received the American Sociological Association Global and Transnational Sociology Section’s “Best Book by an International Scholar Award.”

Having written her Ph.D. dissertation on internal conflict and institutional restructuration in Russia and Turkey, Evren Balta’s research interest continued to explore the intersection of comparative and international politics. She has done extensive research on internal conflicts in Russia and Turkey, Turkish foreign policy, and civil-military relations. She has followed the institutional trajectories and regimes of Turkey and Russia and has done comparative analysis of democratic backsliding and populism in both countries. She has also been involved in several research projects that focuses on how transnational inequalities reshape citizenship regimes.

Balta's scholarly endeavors have been supported by esteemed institutions such as the Fulbright Scholar Program and the Mellon Foundation. She served as a research fellow with the Institute for Human Sciences/Russia in Global Dialogue Program (Vienna, Austria 2017) and as a Fulbright visiting associate professor at the New York University, Program in International Relations during the 2017-2018 academic year. Recognized for her outstanding achievements, Balta was honored with the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Political Science Program at CUNY-The Graduate Center. She is a visiting scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University for the 2024-2025 academic year.

She is currently the director of TUSIAD’s (Turkish Industrialists and Businesspeople Association) Global Politics Forum.

Education
B.A., Ankara University; M.A. Middle East Technical University (1999); M.I.A., Columbia University (2001); Ph.D., CUNY- The Graduate Center (2007)

Languages
Turkish

Countries of Expertise
Turkey

Issues of Expertise
Citizenship, party politics, populism, internal conflict, international relations and foreign policy