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Staff profile

Overview

Dr Bahar Baser

Professor in Politics and International Relations

Affiliations
AffiliationTelephone
Professor in Politics and International Relations in the School of Government and International Affairs
Member of the Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies

Biography

Professor Bahar Baser joined Durham University’s School of Government and International Affairs in 2021. She is Professor of Political Science and International Relations and Director of the Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (IMEIS). She also serves as Global Lead for Internationalisation in the School of Government and International Affairs and as Academic Lead for the British Academy Early Career Researcher Network for the North East and Northern Ireland.

Prior to joining Durham, she was Associate Professor at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations at Coventry University, where she led the Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation Research Group. Between 2012 and 2014, she was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick.Professor Baser completed her PhD in Social and Political Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence. During her doctoral studies, she held visiting research positions at Humboldt University’s Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences, the Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO) in Norrköping, Sweden, and the Instituto de Ciências Sociais (ICS) in Lisbon, Portugal.

Her research sits at the intersection of diaspora studies, migration, conflict and peace studies, authoritarianism, and transnational politics, with a particular regional focus on Turkey, the Kurdish question and the wider Middle East. Her work examines how political conflicts, authoritarian practices and security policies travel across borders and shape diaspora mobilisation, identity, political participation and relations with both home and host states.She has conducted extensive research on diaspora engagement in peace processes, conflict transformation, post-conflict reconstruction and state-building, as well as on stateless diaspora mobilisation in Europe.

A significant strand of her research investigates the relationship between diasporas and security, including host-state counterterrorism policies, the securitisation of diaspora communities, transnational repression, foreign interference, and the ways in which homeland conflicts are reproduced and transformed in transnational settings.Her more recent research develops these themes further by examining authoritarianism beyond borders, diaspora–state relations, transnational repression, and the relationship between diasporas, intelligence and foreign influence. She is also interested in new forms of politically and economically driven migration from authoritarian and democratically backsliding contexts.

In 2026, she was awarded a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship for her project “Russians in Turkey: Navigating Limbo, Precarity and Transnational Networks,” which investigates migration, belonging, political activism and everyday bordering among Russian migrants who moved to Turkey following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Professor Baser has published widely on diasporas, transnational politics, peacebuilding, migration and the Kurdish conflict. Her research has appeared in leading international journals, and she is the author and editor of several books on diaspora politics, conflict and migration. She is co-founding editor of the Journal of Disappearance Studies and Managing Editor of Peacebuilding. She has also served as editor of the Kurdish Studies Series published by Lexington Books and series editor of the Diasporas and Transnationalism Series published by Edinburgh University Press.Alongside her academic research, Professor Baser works extensively with international academic and policy networks and has contributed to debates on diasporas, peace processes, transnational repression, foreign interference and Middle Eastern politics.

She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa (SIGLA), Stellenbosch University, South Africa, a Non-Resident Fellow at the Asia Observatory at Universidad Francisco de Vitoria in Madrid, and an Associate Member of the ERDAM Network at ZOiS in Berlin.Her work has also contributed to research leadership and equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives within the discipline. In 2024, she received the British International Studies Association’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Prize. She is a member of Durham University’s REF 2029 Sub-panel and contributes to the University’s research, internationalisation and Middle East strategy. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. 

Languages

Turkish, English, Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Azerbaijani, Swedish (Beginner), Kurdish (Beginner)

Research Groups

Director of the Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies

Member of Durham Global Security Institute

Fellow of Durham Global Policy Institute

Research Projects

2026: PI, Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship, "Russians in Turkey: Navigating Limbo, Precarity and Transnational Networks".

2021: PI, British Academy Writing Workshops, “Building Research and Publication Capacity of Emerging Scholars in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq”.

2020: Researcher, Academy of Finland, Research Grant, Diasporas and Transportation of Homeland Conflicts: Inter-group Dynamics and Host Country Responses (Sweden, Finland and UK case studies).

2019: PI, Allan and Nesta Ferguson Trust, Research Grant, Youth, Violence and Conflict Transformation: Exploring mobilisation into violence and the role of youth in peacebuilding (Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia, Bosnia and Algeria)

2019: Supervisor, Horizon 2020 Marie Curie Fellowship, Dr. Cihan Dizdaroglu, YOUPEACEBUILDER.

2018: PI, Council for the British Research in the Levant (CBRL), Pilot Study Grant, “Diasporic Identity Formation of Kurdish Jews in Israel”.

2018: Co-I, Thomson Reuters Foundation (in collaboration with the Stanley Foundation and Gerda Henkel Stiftung) Uncovering Security Grant.

2018: Co-I, British Academy Newton Mobility Grant, in collaboration with Dr. Henio Hoyo from University of Monterrey, Mexico.

2016: PI, British Academy Newton Fund / National Research Foundation (South Africa) Fellowship, “South African Peace Process: Lessons Learnt for Peace and Reconciliation in Turkey”, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

2016: PI, Coventry University Pump Prime Funding, “Dynamics of Return Migration to Iraqi Kurdistan: Diaspora Contributions to State-building and post conflict reconstruction”, Coventry, United Kingdom.

2015: PI, Swedish Institute Postdoctoral Research Grant, “The Kurdish Diaspora in Sweden and the Peace Process in Turkey”, Stockholm University, Sweden.

2013: European Union, UK and Turkey Country Representative, INTERACT Project, European University Institute, Migration Policy Center, Italy. 

2012: European Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow, “Diasporas and Contested Sovereignty”, University of Warwick, United Kingdom.

2009: European Union, “EU Profiler” Project Assistant, Member of the “Turkey Team”, European University Institute. ( www.euprofiler.com) 

2007: wedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Swedish Institute, Project Assistant, “Diasporas and Their Involvement in Peace Processes”, Uppsala University, Sweden.

2005: Open Society Institute, Project Assistant, “Conservatism in Turkey: Family, State, Religion and the West”, Bogazici University, Turkey.

2005: European Union, Project Assistant, “Building a Deliberative Dialogue between Turkish and French Youth”. Bogazici University, Turkey.

Research interests

  • Comparative Politics of the Middle East
  • Diasporas and Transnationalism
  • Ethnic Conflicts
  • Institute of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
  • International Migration
  • Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation
  • Terrorism and Political Violence
  • Transitional Justice and Memory

Publications

Authored book

Book review

Chapter in book

Edited book

Journal Article

Report

Supervision students

Abdullah Al-Khonaini

Doctoral Research Student

Abdullah Al-Maani

Doctoral Research Student

Lara Hamidi

Mengqi Sun

Doctoral Research Student

Nannan Li

Doctoral Research Student

Shorooq Al Zaabi

Doctoral Research Student

Shwan Haji