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Soner Cagaptay

  • Beyer Family Fellow
  • Director, Turkish Research Program
Also available in:
  • العربية
  • Farsi

Expertise

  • Turkey
Soner Cagaptay
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Soner Çağaptay'ın Özgeçmişi (PDF)

Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute. He has written extensively on U.S.-Turkish relations, Turkish domestic politics, and Turkish nationalism, publishing in scholarly journals and major international print media, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and The Atlantic. He has been a regular columnist for Hürriyet Daily News, Turkey's oldest and most influential English-language paper, and a contributor to CNN's Global Public Square blog. He appears regularly on Fox News, CNN, NPR, BBC, and CNN-Turk. His latest book, A Sultan in Autumn: Erdogan Faces Turkey's Uncontainable Forces, was published in June 2021 by I.B. Tauris. His books have been translated into Turkish, Italian, Greek, Romanian, and Croatian.

A historian by training, Dr. Cagaptay wrote his doctoral dissertation at Yale University (2003) on Turkish nationalism. Dr. Cagaptay has taught courses at Yale, Princeton University, Georgetown University, and Smith College on the Middle East, Mediterranean, and Eastern Europe. His spring 2003 course on modern Turkish history was the first offered by Yale in three decades. From 2006-2007, he was Ertegun Professor at Princeton University's Department of Near Eastern Studies.

Dr. Cagaptay is the recipient of numerous honors, grants, and chairs, among them the Smith-Richardson, Mellon, Rice, and Leylan fellowships, as well as the Ertegun chair at Princeton. He has also served on contract as chair of the Turkey Advanced Area Studies Program at the State Department's Foreign Service Institute. In 2012 he was named an American Turkish Society Young Society Leader.

After training in India, Dr. Cagaptay is certified as a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT) 200 in 2018.

Soner Cagaptay
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Contact

(202) 230-9550 (media inquiries only)
(202) 452-0650 (other inquiries)
press@washingtoninstitute.org

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  • https://twitter.com/SonerCagaptay twitter

Featured Publications

Erdogan pensive
A Sultan in Autumn
Erdogan Faces Turkey's Uncontainable Forces
The unprecedented economic growth and personal popularity once enjoyed by the Turkish leader have given way to stagnation, a dwindling support base, and problems abroad.
Jun 6, 2021
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  • Soner Cagaptay
Erdogan's Empire: Turkey and the Politics of the Middle East
The president has sought to restore Turkey's Ottoman-era reach and break ranks with traditional Western allies, but such an approach carries heavy risk of isolation, strategic miscalculation, and lost opportunities for the Turkish people.
Jun 10, 2019
◆
  • Soner Cagaptay
The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey
In a world of rising tensions between Russia and the United States, the Middle East and Europe, Sunnis and Shiites
Apr 24, 2017
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  • Soner Cagaptay
The Rise of Turkey: The Twenty-First Century's First Muslim Power
Institute Turkey scholar Soner Cagaptay's guide to both the inspiring potential and the grave challenges of Turkey's transformation into a true regional and global power.
Jan 2, 2014
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  • Soner Cagaptay
Islam, Secularism, and Nationalism in Modern Turkey:
Who Is a Turk?
Turkish Edition Now Available Conventional wisdom holds that in the interwar period, Kemalist secularism eliminated religion from the public sphere
Jan 1, 2006
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  • Soner Cagaptay

Recent Policy Analysis by Soner Cagaptay

Turkish President Erdogan meets Ukrainian President Zelenskiy in Kyiv - source: Reuters
Articles & Testimony
Unpacking Turkey’s Non-Binary Ukraine War Policy
Mar 7, 2023
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  • Soner Cagaptay
Turkish president Erdogan - Source: Reuters
Articles & Testimony
Turkey’s Disaster—and Erdogan’s: How the Earthquake Could Spell the End of His Rule
Mar 1, 2023
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  • Soner Cagaptay
Post earthquake recover efforts in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, in February 2023 - source: Reuters
Brief Analysis
Earthquake in Syria and Turkey: U.S. Policy Implications
Feb 17, 2023
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  • Can Selcuki
  • Amany Qaddour
  • Soner Cagaptay
  • Andrew J. Tabler
Brief Analysis
How Will Turkey’s Earthquake Affect the Current Election Cycle?
Feb 14, 2023
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  • Soner Cagaptay
Turkish president Erdogan at NATO headquarters in Brussels
Articles & Testimony
When Will Turkey Ratify Sweden and Finland’s NATO Accession?
Jan 25, 2023
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  • Soner Cagaptay
Photo illustration of the flags of Sweden, NATO, Finland, and Turkey - source: Reuters
Brief Analysis
Will Turkey Ratify Sweden and Finland’s NATO Accession?
Nov 22, 2022
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  • Soner Cagaptay
  • Michael Singh
  • Sude Akgundogdu
All Policy Analysis by Soner Cagaptay
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