Education
- Boston College, USA In Progress Ph.D. in Political Science
- University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany 2021 M.A. in Political Science and Public Administration
- Charles University, Prague, Czechia 2021 M.A. in International Security Studies (Double Degree)
- Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey 2018 B.A. in Political Science and International Relations
About me
Hi! I’m Betul Ozturan, a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Boston College, currently on the 2026-2027 academic job market. I study how rebel groups evolve into political actors and how power-sharing institutions emerge in post-conflict societies, work that sits at the intersection of international relations, comparative politics, and political violence. My core questions: What determines the kind of governance that emerges after civil war? Why do some rebel alliances hold together into durable governance while others fragment back into conflict? How do wartime alliances, shaped by ideology and power, structure the political institutions that follow? My research has been published in Terrorism & Political Violence, with a book review forthcoming in Civil Wars, and supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the APSA Centennial Center, and Boston College.
My dissertation project investigates rebel group alliances and their long-term influence on postwar governance. To do this, I combine computational methods, like text analysis, social network analysis, and event data modeling. I also work with large datasets on political violence, often building tools that help researchers and the public better understand conflict dynamics.
Alongside my dissertation work, I’ve conducted field research in Turkey and Ukraine, and contributed to projects including the Political Violence Lab and the Western Jihadism Project.
If you’re interested in my work, want to collaborate, or just want to chat about rebel group strategies or visualizing conflict data, feel free to reach out!