About Me

I am an incoming Teaching Fellow in the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. My research brings together contemporary democratic theory and ethnographic methods to study non-democratic politics. I received my Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 2026.

My dissertation and current book project, titled The Appeal of Authoritarianism: A Critical Theory of Citizen-Subject Formation in Turkey, investigates how authoritarian governments appeal to citizens when standard indicators such as economic performance and political stability do not explain their popular support. Building on the tradition of critical theory, in-depth citizen interviews, and fieldwork conducted in Turkey, it develops a “practice approach” to authoritarianism that centers the regime techniques that produce subjects who refer to extra-communal claims to authority in their political judgments, rather than engaging in democratic politics. My next book-length project investigates the relationship between international philanthropy and the rise of anti-gender politics in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

My work won the Sakıp Sabancı International Research Award (2023) and the William E. Connolly Award of the WPSA (2026) for the best paper in contemporary democratic thought. Additionally, I received a Davis Projects for Peace Grant (2024), and I was a visiting fellow at Koç University’s Center for Research on Globalization, Peace, and Democratic Governance in 2022-23.

I have an MA in Social Sciences (2018) and an MA in Political Science (2021), both from the University of Chicago. Before coming to Chicago, I received dual BAs in Political Science and Sociology from Boğaziçi University in Turkey.

You can find my CV here and contact me at buraktan [at] uchicago [dot] edu.