Metehan Tekinırk

Colgate University, Political Science, Faculty Member

Boston University, Political Science, Alumnus

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Dr. Metehan Tekinırk is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Colgate University working in the fields of Comparative Politics, International Relations, and Political Sociology. His top areas of interest are nationalism and national identities, populist mobilization and incumbents, democratization/de-democratization, party politics, and social/counter-culture movements.

Tekinırk got his professional training at Boston University under the supervision of Prof. Liah Greenfeld. His 2022 dissertation focusing on the populism - national identity relationship and the dynamics of democratic backsliding in present day Turkey has been nominated for APSA's Gabriel A. Almond (Best Doctoral Dissertation in the Field of Comparative Politics) Award. He also holds a M.A. degree in Political Science, and B.A. degrees in Economics and International Relations from Koç University in Istanbul, where he was born and raised.

Tekinirk is a member of the Democratic Erosion consortium and the Middle East and North Africa section of APSA, and regularly teaches comparative classes on democracy and protest. Currently, he is working on preparing his first book manuscript based on the aforementioned dissertation and field research.

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Papers by Metehan Tekinırk

Globalization, the rhetoric of nationalism, and the resilience of neoliberalism

Research Handbook on Nationalism, 2020

According to many political scientists, the end of the Cold War heralded a unipolar world (Ikenbe... more According to many political scientists, the end of the Cold War heralded a unipolar world (Ikenberry, Mastanduno & Wohlforth, 2009; Krauthammer, 1991), and the triumph of liberal democracy (Fukuyama, 1989). Indeed, after the demise of the Soviet Union, the United States was virtually unchallenged, the frontiers of market capitalism expanded significantly, and "globalization" became a buzzword in the social sciences. Commitment to liberal-democratic and market-friendly practices was eminent in this context, thanks to the "theme(s) of democracy," human rights and freedom, and their "legitimizing discourse" (Robinson, 1996, pp. 619-23). While institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reflected this commitment with the concept of (loan) "conditionality," the enlargement of the European Union, where "countries willing to enter the EU have been asked to demonstrate their liberal-democratic bona fide and, in case their national traditions were different, modify their practices" (Greenfeld, 2016, p. 129), has been even more instrumental. It is in this particular context that many Western observers assumed that the world's political and economic order was "set on an established, predictable course," along which liberal-democratic norms would "continue to spread in the developing world and deepen in the rich nations," and cosmopolitan and "globalist" values would be ascendant, "chipping away at national sovereignty" (Rodrik, 2017, p. 1). However, the political experience of the early twenty-first century not only suggests that "the unipolar moment" has been short-lived, primarily due to the astonishing rise of China, the revivalist geo-political ambitions of Russia and intense interstate competition, but also that "liberal democracy itself is no longer the most salient discourse of political legitimacy and the good life" (Brown, 2005, p. 57). The aforementioned conventional assumptions have been upended by major developments in recent years, such as the electoral gains made by nationalist and far-right parties in Europe, the presidency of Donald Trump, and the Brexit vote. Virtually everywhere in the world, clear expressions of nationalism are observed, and national sovereignty is as integral to political discourse as ever, instead of waning. What explains this resilience of nationalism, and the plethora of political parties and leaders that rely on nationalism and a discourse centered on preserving and strengthening national sovereignty? Why is nationalism such a potent force in both domestic and international politics in the early twenty-first century? This chapter attempts to answers these questions. I suggest that the transformative impact of two processes, namely the changes stemming from the spread of neo-liberalism, and the relative decline of American hegemony, are causally important for the prominence of nationalism in the early twenty-first century. The spread of a rationality of government based on neo-liberalism is more effective in accounting for the potency of nationalism in various domestic political scenes, and