Dr Mustafa Demir

My Research Interests include:

• Transnationalism and transnational political actors 
• Transnational Populism 
• Religion and transnational politics 
• De-democratisation, rise of authoritarian politics and securitization 
• Comparative politics 
• Diaspora policies/strategies of authoritarian regimes
• European Policy towards the Middle East 
• Democratisation and foreign policymaking
• Geopolitics and energy security

Over the years my academic interests varied from impact of democratisation on foreign and political economic relations; geopolitical and economic factors affecting foreign policy decisions; to politics and international relations of populist authoritarian regimes to religion and politics. The nexus between populism (with particular reference to religious and civilisationist populism) and authoritarianism, emerging international alliances among the populist authoritarian actors that I call ‘populist international’ are some of the matters that most recently draw my academic attention and interests.

My academic venture has started with a research project investigating impacts of democratization and growing authoritarianism in foreign policy making. I adopted a globalist approach, which required me to look at the developments through the lenses of global political economy and energy security. This allowed me to reveal and highlight the connection between global political economy and process of democratisation and authoritarianism in the countries that occupies the geopolitical flashpoint/Faultlines.

My most recent publications focus on the nexus between populism and authoritarianism; how the process of securitization and de-securitization have been instrumentalized by authoritarian regimes to popularize; i) their political narrative; ii) eliminate or; iii) co-opt their political rivals and consolidate their authoritarian hold on power. At international level, I am interested in politics and international relations of populist leaders and political and economic implications of international and civilisationist and religious populism. For the list of published materials please see the ‘Selected Publication’ section below.