Domestic and foreign politics of Turkey, Ottoman and Turkish history, international politics of Central Asia and Caucasus, nationalist movements and nation-building in Turkey and Central Asia, theories on nationalism and ethnicity, International Relations theory and security, development and population studies

Dr Mustafa Murat Yurtbilir received his undergraduate degree from the Department of International Relations and Political Science, Bogaziçi University, Istanbul. He has two Master degrees: one in International Relations from Istanbul University, where he wrote a thesis entitled ‘Pan-Turkism and Nihal Atsiz’; and one in Development Studies from Uppsala University, Sweden. This thesis was entitled ‘Population and Poverty: Analysis of Population Growth Trends and the Poverty in the Case of Turkey’. He completed his PhD studies at the Department of International Relations, Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara with the dissertation:  ‘A Comparison of Nation-Building Practices of Uzbekistan and Turkey’. Dr Yurtbilir has been a team member at various levels in research and development projects by UNICEF, EU, the Turkish Ministry of Education and METU since 2002. He has served as a senior officer at the European Union Information Centre under the European Union Delegation to Turkey. Dr Yurtbilir taught at the Department of International Relations, the American University, Kyrenia, Cyprus from 2012 to 2014. He has been a visiting fellow at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW Canberra in 2014.