Burhanettin Duran

General Coordinator
Burhanettin Duran received his BA in Political Science and International Relations from Bogazici University in 1993, and his Ph.D. in Political Science from Bilkent University in 2001. He was a visiting scholar at George Mason University in 2010-2011. Prof. Duran has been focusing on the transformation of Islamism, Turkish Political Thought, Turkish Domestic Politics, Turkish Foreign Policy and Middle Eastern Politics. Currently Prof. Duran is a professor at Ibn Haldun University and General Coordinator of SETA Foundation. On 09th October 2018, Prof. Duran was appointed as member of Turkish Presidency Security and Foreign Policies Council.
  • If the seven-party coalition actually attempts to govern, they will transform government agencies into fiefdoms loyal to different political parties and ideologies. Each political party will attempt to inject its own supporters into the bureaucracy, fueling fragmentation and even rivalries. It is virtually impossible to guess how many meetings they would have to hold to coordinate their actions.
  • Türkiye will hold the most critical elections in its recent past on May 14, 2023. The haste and increasingly intense rhetoric of electoral alliances and candidates attest to that fact. Before the war of words between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his opponent, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairperson Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, kicks off in the final stretch, it would be helpful to summarize what each candidate says about the future (and what they refrain from saying).
  • As presidential candidates and electoral alliances become clear, the election campaign has reached a new level. We are witnessing unreserved statements and even accusations among politicians within the same electoral alliance. Yet, their deeds are not aligned with their words. In other words, they are doing what is politically convenient. At the same time, politicians are starting to voice extreme views that amount to impositions on the electorate. Within the opposition, we see a mixture of threats, peer pressure, hope, rage and a yearning for revenge. In this sense, the election campaign takes shape in a way that makes it harder for voters to make sense of all the political and ideological divisions and rivalries.
  • With nearly 50 days left until the Turkish elections, the People’s Alliance and the Nation Alliance are doing everything possible to win the Presidency in the first round.
  • The 2023 presidential election in Türkiye, which will pit the presidential candidates of two major alliances against each other, created a state of great intellectual and ideological mobilization. With the distinction between “us” and “them” forming the backbone of politics, polarization becomes inevitable. Indeed, polarization becomes more intense and widespread due to the presidential system giving rise to alliances and the Nation Alliance uniting around "anti-Erdoğanism" after two decades.