Dr Osman Bahadir Dincer
Key expertise
Turkish and Middle Eastern Politics; State; Contentious Politics; Social Movements; Turkish Foreign Policy towards the Middle East; Democratisation and Political Development in the Middle East.
(Academic) education / CV:
Ph.D. in Political Science / Bilkent University, Ankara (2016)
Master's in International Relations / School of International Service, the American University, Washington DC (2008)
Engaged in research at the International Strategic Research Organization (USAK) between 2005 and 2016, Osman Bahadir Dincer acted as the Director of the organization's Center for Middle Eastern Studies after 2012. Before joining the BICC team, he was a Research Excellence Fellow at Central European University (CEU), where he worked as an associated post-doctoral research fellow at the project Striking from the Margins: Religion, State, and Disintegration in the Middle East. As a comparative political scientist, Dinçer has focused his research on Middle Eastern politics with particular reference to the state, violent and non-violent non-state actors, social and political movements, democratisation and Turkish foreign policy. Dinçer has authored/co-authored numerous articles, reports and policy papers for various research institutions, including the Brookings Institution, the Valdai Discussion Club, GMF, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, European Leadership Network, as well as for USAK itself. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara and two language certificates, one from Cairo University and one from Ruhr-Universität Bochum.
At BICC, he is currently researching two of the de facto state structures in the Middle East, Islamic State (2014-2017) in Syria and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. His latest project on the very subject focused on the emergence of IS and particularly on alternative policy options in fighting it, which was commissioned for the NATO Center of Excellence Defense Against Terrorism (COEDAT) in 2015.
Recent Publications:
- Dincer, O. (2022). The legacy of the Arab uprisings on Turkey’s foreign policy: Ankara’s regional power delusion. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2022.2145180.
- Dincer, O. (2022). Citizenship Practices in Syria Before the Arab Uprisings: The Legacy of ‘Concentric’ Citizenship. Politics, Religion & Ideology, 23(2), 158-176.
- Dincer, O., Özgüler-Aktel, B., & Hecan, M. (2021). Is Re-Calibration Feasible in Turkey-Egypt Relations? Limits and Possibilities. Turkish Policy Quarterly, 20(2), pp. 107-115.
- Dincer, O., & Hecan, M. (2021). Turkey’s Syria policy: The political opportunities and pitfalls of the Syrian conflict. In A. Al-Azmeh, H. Hasan, H. Akdedian, & N. Al-Bagdadi (Eds.), Striking from the margins: State, religion and devolution of authority in the Middle East (pp. 255-281). London: Saqi Books.
- Dincer, O., & Hecan, M. (2020). Democratisation in ambiguous environments: Positive prospects for democracy in the MENA region after the Arab Spring. Third World Quaterly, 41(12), 2087-2108.
