The recent regime change in Syria and Turkey’s role in this process underscores a complex interplay of geopolitical shifts in the Middle East, the regional ambitions of the Erdoğan government, and its domestic political calculations. This panel will analyze the political trajectory of Syria under its new leadership and its evolving relationship with Turkey while also examining Turkey’s policy toward Kurdish demands on both sides of the border and the recently revived talks with the imprisoned PKK leader.

This event is co-sponsored by The Program on Turkey at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and the Middle Eastern Studies Forum.

For millennia, land has been a symbol of wealth and privilege. But the true power of land ownership is even greater than we might think. Who owns the land determines whether a society will be equal or unequal, whether it will develop or decline, and whether it will safeguard or sacrifice its environment. Modern history has been defined by land reallocation on a massive scale. From the 1500s on, European colonial powers and new nation-states shifted indigenous lands into the hands of settlers. The 1900s brought new waves of land appropriation, from Soviet and Maoist collectivization to initiatives turning large estates over to family farmers. The shuffle continues today as governments vie for power and prosperity by choosing who should get land. Drawing on a career’s worth of original research and on-the-ground fieldwork, Land Power shows that choices about who owns the land have locked in poverty, sexism, racism, and climate crisis—and that what we do with the land today can change our collective fate.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Michael Albertus is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and the author of five books. His research examines democracy and dictatorship, inequality and redistribution, property rights, and civil conflict. His newest book, Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn't, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies, was published by Basic Books in January 2025. In addition to his books, Albertus is also the author of nearly 30 peer-reviewed journal articles, including at flagship journals like the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and World Politics. The defining features of Albertus' work are his engagement with big questions and puzzles and the ability to join big data and cutting-edge research methods with original, deep on-the-ground fieldwork everywhere from government offices to archives and farm fields. He has conducted fieldwork throughout the Americas, southern Europe, South Africa, and elsewhere. His books and articles have won numerous awards and shifted conventional understandings of democracy, authoritarianism, and the consequences of how humans occupy and relate to the land.
 

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to the Philippines Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person.

This talk will examine how technology can amplify deliberative democracy to foster a more informed and engaged society. Drawing on findings from two nationally representative online Deliberative Polls called America in One Room, the talk will demonstrate how online deliberation is alleviating polarization and producing lasting effects with hopes for a more deliberative society. The talk will also explore how the AI-assisted Stanford Online Deliberation Platform, which has logged over 100,000 deliberation hours in over 35 countries and 25 languages, has been used to facilitate high-quality, structured discussions on complex issues, including democratic reform and the implications of generative AI and metaverse governance. By integrating insights from research and practice, the session will demonstrate how deliberation can empower voters, improve decision-making, and counteract the polarization threatening democracy.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Alice Siu received her Ph.D. from the Department of Communication at Stanford University, with a focus in political communication, deliberative democracy, and public opinion, and her B.A. degrees in Economics and Public Policy and M.A. degree in Political Science, also from Stanford.

Siu has advised policymakers and political leaders around the world at various levels of government, including leaders in China, Brazil, and Argentina. Her research interests in deliberative democracy include what happens inside deliberation, such as examining the effects of socio-economic class in deliberation, the quality of deliberation, and the quality of arguments in deliberation.

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to Room E008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.

This study examines the evolution of Turkey's electoral dynamics from 1990 to 2023, focusing on social cleavages and democratic backsliding's impact on party competition and voter behavior. Using data from the World Values Survey and Turkish Elections Studies, the analysis tracks changes that enabled the conservative pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party's (AKP) rise within Turkey's sociopolitical context. It explores the "alla Turca kulturkampf" or center-periphery cleavage's role in shaping the electoral landscape, especially during the AKP's post-2002 rule. Findings indicate that electoral choices now reflect attitudinal differences over group identities, with the AKP's dominance linked to the cultural cleavage's persistence around the center-periphery divide, the decline of the Kemalist modernization program, and the periphery's capture of the center. The study also addresses challenges from gender inequality, income disparity, and new urbanites' impact on modernization, providing insights into the interplay between social change, democratic backsliding, and electoral dynamics in unconsolidated democracies.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Ali Çarkoğlu is a political scientist specializing in elections, voting behavior, public opinion, and Turkish politics. He has led and participated in major cross-national and national projects such as the Turkish Election Study (TES), Turkish Giving Behaviour Study, International Social Survey Program (ISSP), and Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES). I took part in the planning committees for Modules 5 and 6 in CSES and ISSP modules on family and changing gender roles (2012, 2022), religion (2018), and social networks (2017). He is the founding PI in TES and developed the campaign media content data program, which documents daily campaign content for over ten national newspapers since 2002.

Ali's current research is an exploration of the secularization process in Turkey, a topic where the evidence has so far been mixed. Some scholars find the Turkish experience to possess reflections of secularization, as expected following classical modernization theory, while others present evidence that contradicts these expectations. The most recent contributions to this literature now focus on outliers where resistance to secularization exists, and one even finds a resurgence of religiosity in various dimensions of social life. He focuses on Turkey, which can be considered an outlier. In the past, he has contributed to this literature through several projects and articles and touched upon the enduring influence of religion in political life.

His main argument in this project is that Turkish society's dual character, where a potentially secularizing group faces an increasingly resacralizing group, is responsible for the contrasting findings about secularization and creating the Turkish outlier. He follows historical and quantitative research, bringing together comprehensive data that focus on the country's critical areas of social development. Ali argues that underlying Turkish ideological and affective polarization is the dual character of Turkish society with opposing secularization trends.

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to Room E008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.