Yaprak Gürsoy is Professor of European Politics and Chair of Contemporary Turkish Studies at LSE. Prior to joining the European Institute, she was a Senior Lecturer and the Undergraduate Programme Director of Politics and International Relations at Aston University. She was also a Senior Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford University and an Associate Professor at Istanbul Bilgi University.
Yaprak completed her PhD in foreign affairs at the University of Virginia in 2008. Since then, she has worked on regime change and consolidation, democratization, civil-military relations, coups d’état, and the influence of the European Union on domestic politics. She has published extensively on these subjects, mainly focusing on Turkey in comparison with Greece and Southern Europe. Her research and publications were recognized in 2016 by the Turkish Science Academy with a Young Scientist Award (BAGEP), given to promising academics. Yaprak is the author of The Transformation of Civil-Military Relations in Turkey (Istanbul: Bilgi University Press, 2013, in Turkish) and Between Military Rule and Democracy: Regime Consolidation in Greece, Turkey, and Beyond (University of Michigan Press, 2017).
More recently, Yaprak’s project on Turkey-UK Relations was funded by the British Institute at Ankara (BIAA). This new area of research has led her to explore Turkish perceptions of the UK and the impact of emotions on international relations and politics.
Between 2018 and 2023, Yaprak was the co-founder and co-convener of the Turkish Politics Specialist Group in the Political Studies Association (PSA). Since 2019, she has served as a council member of the British Association for Turkish Area Studies (BATAS). In 2022, she received an Excellence in Education Award by LSE.
As the Chair of Contemporary Turkish Studies at LSE, she continues to teach and research her main areas of interest, Turkey’s relations with the West and the UK, and Turkish politics in comparison with Europe.
Selected Recent Publications
BOOK:
Between Military Rule and Democracy: Regime Consolidation in Greece, Turkey, and Beyond (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2017).
JOURNAL ARTICLES:
"Emotions and Narratives of the Spirit of Gallipoli: Turkey’s Collective Identity and Status in International Relations," British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Online First (April 2022): 1-20.
"Anti-Populist Coups d’état in the Twenty-first Century: Reasons, Dynamics and Consequences," Third World Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 4 (2021): 793-81.
"Moving Beyond European and Latin American Typologies: The Peculiarities of AKP’s Populism in Turkey," Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 51, No. 1 (January 2021): 157-178.
"Reconsidering Britain’s Soft Power: Lessons from the Perceptions of the Turkish Political Elite," Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Online First (October 2020): 1-19.
BOOK CHAPTERS:
“The 15 July 2016 Failed Coup and the Security Sector”, Routledge Handbook on Turkish Politics, edited by Alpaslan Özerdem and Matthew Whiting (Routledge, 2019), 284-295.
“Turkey”, The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces, edited by Hugo Meijer and Marco Wyss (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 157-178.
OPINION PIECES AND BLOG POSTS:
“Turkey is facing its own coronavirus crisis – so why is it sending medical supplies to the UK?,” The Conversation, 22 April 2020.
“Turkish Populism as a ‘Theory-Reconstructing’ Case Study,” LSE Euro Crisis Blog, 11 December 2019.
“Why would a Third Country Root for Soft Brexit? Views and Lessons from Turkey,” The Foreign Policy Centre, 29 January 2019.
“Turkey in and out of NATO? An Instance of a Turbulent Alliance with Western Institutions,” (with İlke Toygur), Royal Institute of Elcano ARI 73/2018, 11 June 2018.
“The Recent Crisis between Greece and Turkey: Two NATO Allies on the Brink of War, Again,” The Foreign Policy Centre, 24 April 2018.
“The Earthquake Might Upend More Than Turkey’s Elections,” The World Today, Chatham House Publications, 31 March 2023.
REPORTS:
"Brexit: Türkiye-Birleşik Krallık-AB İlişkilerinde Siyasi ve Ekonomik Riskler ve Fırsatlar," (Brexit: Political and Economic Risks and Opportunities in Turkish-UK-EU Relations) Dış Ekonomik İlişkiler Kurulu (DEIK), September 2019.
"Brexit and the UK-Turkey Relationship,” Renewing and Rethinking Bilateralism after Brexit, edited by Andrew Glencross, Aston Centre for Europe, July 2019.