Demographic Anxiety in Turkey: Migration, Identity and Politics (Edinburgh Studies on Modern Turkey) - Hardcover

Sefa Secen; Serhun Al

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1399559079 ISBN 13: 9781399559072

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2026

Synopsis

Offers one of the first systematic and comprehensive analyses of refugee politics in Turkey

• Provides a cross-regional perspective on migration crises in both the Middle East and Europe, detailing how Turkey has managed substantial migratory pressures originating from each region
• Analyses both immigration to and emigration from Turkey, offering an integrated discussion of how these simultaneous processes interact and shape public debates and policy responses
• Employs a rigorously defined mixed-methods approach, integrating quantitative data with qualitative sources

Over the past decade, Turkey has witnessed unprecedented waves of migration from the Middle East, as well as from neighbouring regions such as the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. This book offers the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of these public and political discourses, including the collective anxieties – particularly demographic anxiety – and state policies that have emerged in response. It deftly integrates insights from migration studies, ontological security theory and securitisation literature to illuminate public opinion, societal attitudes and governmental approaches towards refugees and migrants. Not only does this book provide a cross-regional perspective on the migration crises of the Middle East and Europe, but it also situates the Turkish case within broader global-comparative debates. It is an examination of how Turkey has navigated significant migratory pressures in ways that resonate with, and diverge from, patterns observed worldwide.

About this title

About the Author

Sefa Secen is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Nazareth University, Rochester, NY. Secen received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University in July 2022. He completed a two-year postdoc at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at Ohio State University. He primarily studies party policies and public attitudes toward refugees with a focus on the social construction of threat and security perceptions. Secen’s research has been published in journals and media outlets, including the Journal of Global Security Studies, Politics, Groups, and Identities, European Politics and Society, Turkish Studies, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, Muslim World Journal of Human Rights, Forced Migration Review, the Journal of Privacy and Confidentiality, TIME, the Washington Post, and the Conversation.,Serhun Al received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Utah in 2015. He is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Izmir University of Economics, Turkey. He was a visiting scholar at Ohio State University during the 2022-23 academic year. His research interests include politics of identity, nationalism and ethnic conflict, and security studies within the context of modern Turkey and the Kurdish Middle East. He is the author of Patterns of Nationhood and Saving the State in Turkey (Routledge, 2019) and the co-editor of Comparative Kurdish Politics in the Middle East (Palgrave, 2018). His articles have been published in journals such as Ethnopolitics, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, Nationalities Papers, Globalizations, Journal of International Relations and Development, Turkish Studies, and Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.

Edition details

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1399559079
• ISBN 13: 9781399559072
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 232