Contesting Pluralism(s): Islamism, Liberalism, and Nationalism in Turkey and Beyond

Nora Fisher Onar is Associate Professor and Chair of Global Studies at the University of San Francisco. Her research interests include international relations theory, diplomacy, comparative politics / area studies (Turkey/Middle East; Europe; Eurasia), political ideologies, gender, and history/memory. She is also increasingly interested in the impact of technological change on international affairs. She received her doctorate from the University of Oxford and holds master’s and undergraduate degrees from Johns Hopkins (SAIS) and Georgetown universities, respectively. She speaks five languages, has traveled to over 80 countries, and lived in eight. Fisher-Onar is the author of Contesting Pluralism(s): Islam, Liberalism and Nationalism in Turkey, with Cambridge University Press, and lead editor of the volume, Istanbul: Living With Difference in a Global City (co-edited with Susan C. Pearce and E. Fuat Keyman). She is also the editor of special issues of major scholarly journals like: the Journal of Common Market Studies; International Affairs, and Global Studies Quarterly, among others. Fisher-Onar speaks often at policy fora like Brookings, Carnegie, and the German Marshall Fund (GMF) where she has served as a Ronald Asmus Fellow, Transatlantic Academy Fellow, and Non-Residential Fellow. She further contributes commentary to platforms like the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, and OpenDemocracy.

Irem Karamik holds a PhD from the Department of International Relations at Hacettepe University. Her doctoral research focused on the visual theory of international relations, foreign policy, and emotions. She is also a lecturer and Erasmus+ Institutional Coordinator at Mardin Artuklu University, where she teaches courses on Political Psychology, Postcolonial Discourses, and the Nation-State. She obtained her master’s degree from the University of Birmingham in the UK as a Jean Monnet scholar.

Erman Ermihan is a postdoctoral researcher at Bilkent University. Ermihan completed his doctorate in the Department of International Relations at Kadir Has University in 2025, after receiving his bachelor’s degree in the same department at Istanbul Bilgi University and his master’s degree in Political Science at Sabancı University. His research and areas of interest include Turkey-European Union relations, Turkish foreign policy, ontological security, and identity and emotions in foreign policy. His publications have been featured in journals such as the Journal of European Integration, Turkish Studies, All Azimuth, and International Relations.