I am a PhD candidate in Political Theory and Comparative Politics at the University of Chicago, a residential fellow at the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, and a doctoral fellow at the Pozen Center for Human Rights. My research brings together contemporary democratic theory and politics of authoritarianism.
My research contributes to democratic theory by studying how communities behave in ways that contradict the presumed normative value of democracy in particular contexts. My dissertation project, titled The Appeal of Authoritarianism: Facts, Values, and Intuitions 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 ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews in Turkey, it demonstrates that authoritarianism produces support by shaping the public context in which political judgment takes place.
I received a Davis Projects for Peace Grant (2024) and I won the Sakıp Sabancı International Research Award (2023). 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. Prior to coming to Chicago, I received dual BAs in Political Science and in Sociology from Boğaziçi University in Turkey.
You can find my CV here and contact me at buraktan [at] uchicago [dot] edu.
Burak Tan 