Doctoral research fellow  Ahmet Veli Haydar

Ahmet Veli Haydar holds a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) and a Master of Science (M.Sc.) in International Relations. Prior to beginning his doctoral studies, he gained professional experience in public institutions and served as a Researcher at the Middle East Technical University (METU), Turkey. He was a Senior Researcher on the project, Central Asian Foreign Policy through Qualitative and Quantitative Methods, where he contributed to the development of original datasets and comparative analyses of Central Asian foreign policy. His doctoral research examines the foreign policy of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) during the First World War. Challenging the conventional interpretation that Ottoman eastern policy was primarily driven by Pan-Turkism or Pan-Turanism, his dissertation argues that the enduring Russian threat constituted the principal strategic factor shaping the CUP's eastern policy. Focusing on Ottoman relations with the Caucasus and Turkestan, his research adopts a multi-archival approach, drawing on archival materials from Ottoman, Russian, British, Tajik, and Uzbek archives. His broader research interests include foreign policy analysis, Role Theory, energy geopolitics. His current research combines archival history with International Relations theory to examine the relationship between security, identity, enmity, and foreign policy in the late Ottoman Empire and Central Eurasia.