The Mershon Center has a new visiting scholar for 2017-18 academic year: Efe Tokdemir, a postdoctoral fellow with International Studies Association’s James N. Rosenau Fellowship, who will be working on projects examining causes and consequences of non-violent strategies of both state and non-state actors at the micro-level.

Tokdemir’s research interests lie at the intersection of international relations and comparative politics. His primary research agenda examines how state and non-state actors strategically develop policies in relation to their audience in order to achieve their goals, and how individuals respond to these policies in return. While he focuses on the impacts of state actors' foreign policies to win "hearts and minds'" abroad in his dissertation, he also studies violent non-state actors' reputation-building strategies by bridging individual- and group-level studies.

Tokdemir received his Ph.D. (2017) and M.A. (2015) in political science from Binghamton University, SUNY; and B.A. (2012) in political science and international relations from Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey. His work has so far appeared in various journals including Journal of Peace Research, Conflict Management and Peace Science, International Political Science Review, and Electoral Studies.