Rate My Professor Hakan Yavuz

Hakan Yavuz is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Utah, with additional appointments in the Middle East Center and the School of Public Affairs. He earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1998. Yavuz's research specializations center on transnational Islamic networks in Central Asia and Turkey, ethnic and religious conflicts, and political developments in Turkey and the Middle East. His academic interests explore the intersections of political Islam, secularism, Muslim democracy, nationalism, and identity politics in these regions.

Throughout his career at the University of Utah, where he joined as an assistant professor in 1998 and advanced to full professor, Yavuz has authored and edited numerous influential books and articles. Key publications include Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (2003), Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey (2009), Turkish Islam and the Secular State: The Gülen Movement (2003), The Emergence of a New Turkey: Islam, Democracy, and the AK Parti (2006), The Kurds Ascending: The Evolving Solution to the Kurdish Problem in Iraq and Turkey (2011), Toward an Islamic Enlightenment: The Gülen Movement (2013), and Nostalgia for the Empire: The Politics of Neo-Ottomanism (2020). Other notable works encompass Political Islam and the Welfare (Refah) Party in Turkey (1997), Five Stages of the Construction of Kurdish Nationalism in Turkey (2001), and Turkish Identity and Foreign Policy in Flux: The Rise of Neo-Ottomanism (1998). These contributions have shaped scholarly discourse on the Gülen movement, Neo-Ottomanism, Kurdish issues, and the evolution of secularism in Turkey. Yavuz received the Superior Teaching Award for Senior Professor from the College of Social and Behavioral Science at the University of Utah. His scholarship provides critical analysis of religion's role in modern politics and state-building processes.