Working Papers

“Cultivating Dissidence: The Turkish State's Perilous Dilemma between Co-opting and Integrating Local Kurds (1984-2015)"

This article probes the relationship between ethnic representation in the military and violent and non-violent ethnic mobilization using the AFSOC (Armed Forces Senior Officer Corps) and MIHSA (Military High School Alumni) datasets, UCDP (Uppsala Conflict Data Program), historical election data, and additional interviews I conducted during my fieldwork in Turkey. It asks how Kurdish representation in the Turkish officer corps and the Turkish state’s local military recruitment strategies have affected local Kurds’ motivation to join the insurgency or support pro-Kurdish parties between 1980 and 2015. My subnational-level analysis of the historical and geographical patterns of officer and village guard recruitment versus insurgent recruitment and pro-Kurdish-party vote shows that Kurdish violent and non-violent mobilizations are more pronounced in localities where the military has failed to integrate the local population into the officer corps. I argue that this results from the Turkish state’s prioritization of cooptation over integration in its military policy, as the intensity of local village guard recruitment, as opposed to officer recruitment, has had no effect on Kurdish mobilization. My proposed project contributes to the literature on the determinants of the onset and durability of ethnic insurgency by elucidating the conditions under which the state’s strategies to undermine the saliency of ethnic conflict may succeed or fail. 

“When the Revolution Devours its Own Children: Coups, Purges, and Military Effectiveness in Turkey (1960-2007)"

This article investigates how coups and coup-prevention reforms affect military effectiveness. Through an event-history analysis, the article traces each senior officer’s career path in the Turkish army and probes the influence of six military interventions between 1960 and 2007 on the promotion and retirement decisions about approximately 17,000 general staff officers and generals using the original HOCA (Historical Officer Career Advancement) Dataset. Previous research on military interventions emphasizes that coups and coup-prevention reforms undermine military effectiveness and the military’s demographic diversity. The Turkish case casts doubt on these views by, first, evincing a puzzling increase in merit-based promotions and drastic revisions in officer education programs in the immediate aftermath of military interventions from 1960 to 2007, each of which was accompanied by a comprehensive purge movement in the officer corps; second, by revealing that post-coup purges fail to alter the ethnic and geographical composition of the Turkish officer corps, particularly in the long run. I argue that this results from military leaders’ performance-sensitive “self-coup proofing” strategies that recognize the importance of military effectiveness and organizational cultural particularities while attempting to depoliticize the officer corps, an uncommon approach in most civilian dictatorships where concerns over regime security outweigh external threats. 

"The Intra-institutional Instability Model of Civil-Military Relations: Military Aid and Coups in Turkey, Greece, and Egypt "

Focusing comparatively on the Turkish, Egyptian, and Greek cases, this article elucidates the conditions under which military aid can lead to demographic change in the armed forces and improve military effectiveness. I show that American military aid programs since the late 1940s helped diversify the officer corps geographically in each case but failed to change the promotion patterns. 

 Civil-Military Relations: The Military and Democracy

"Officers and Modern Autocrats: The Army's Response to Regime Personalization and

Autocratic Cooptation in Turkey and Russia"

"Soldiers in Rubbles: The Politics of the Military's Use in Disaster Response in Turkey"

"Paradox of Norm Diffusion via Foreign Military Training: The Impact of US Military Training

on Turkey's Civil-Military Relations (1946-2015)"

"Boots and Ballot Boxes: Determinants of Soldiers' Voting Behavior"

Conflict and Ethnic-Religious Integration  

"Demographic Trends in the Turkish Armed Forces since the Late Ottoman Period (1856-2015)"

Military Effectiveness: 

"Conflict and Military Reform: How Conflict Helps Reforming and Purging the Military?"

 Research Methods

"Researching closed institutions in sensitive times: A New Methodological Approach to Research on Security Organizations"