People

Ceren Lord

British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow
AFFILIATION
International Relations Network
College
St Antony's College

Ceren Lord is currently British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow at DPIR. She was previously a Sasakawa Peace Foundation Postdoctoral Research Officer at the Middle East Studies Centre, the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA). She completed her PhD in May 2015 at the London School of Economics, Government Department, focusing on religious political mobilisation and the role of the state through the case study of the rise of political Islam in Turkey, with a comparative consideration of India, Malaysia and Ireland. She holds a master’s degree from Oxford in Modern Middle Eastern Studies. Alongside her academic career, Ceren previously worked in finance as an economist focusing on Europe, the Middle East and Africa. She is a regular contributor to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Associate Editor at the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies and the lead editor for the British Institute at Ankara (BIAA) Contemporary Turkey series published by I.B Tauris/Bloomsbury.

Research summary

Conflict and identity, religious political movements, Islamism; secularism and state-religion relations; the role of the ulema and changing nature of Islamic authority; comparative democratisation and the dynamics of authoritarian persistence; nationalism and nation-building; sectarianism and ethno-religious mobilisation in Turkey and the Middle East, the Alevi movement.

Ceren's research interests include:

Canada , Middle East, North Africa, Identity, Ideology, Religion, Europe

Ceren Lord

Publications

Book

  • October 2018, ‘Religious Politics in Turkey: From the Birth of the Republic to the AKP,’ Cambridge University Press

Articles

  • July 2020, ‘The Transnational Mobilization of the Alevis of Turkey: From Invisibility to the Struggle for Equality,’ The Oxford Handbook of Turkish Politics
  • June 2019, 'Book Review: "Islam and Secularism in Post-colonial Thought. A Cartography of Asadian Genealogies" by Hadi Enayat.' British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
  • March 2019, 'Sectarianized Securitization in Turkey in the Wake of the 2011 Arab Uprisings,' The Middle East Journal    
  • 2017, ‘The Story Behind the Rise of Turkey’s Ulema,’ Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP)
  • November 2016, ‘The “Alevi Openings” and Turkish Nationalism,’ Turkish Studies
  • July 2016, ‘Between Islam and the Nation; Nation-building, the Ulama and Alevi Identity in Turkey,’ Nations and Nationalism
  • January 2017, ‘Situating Change Under the AKP,’ Chapter in M. Ersoy, E. Ozyurek (eds), Contemporary Turkey at a Glance II. Springer VS, Wiesbaden
  • 2015, ‘Rethinking the Role of the Ulama in Turkey,’ Heritage Turkey, No.15
  • April 2012, ‘The Persistence of Turkey's Majoritarian System of Government,’ Government and Opposition
  • 10 September 2010, ‘Don’t Sweeten the Bitter Pill of an Illiberal Democracy,’ Open Democracy