Oksan Bayulgen

Department Head and Professor

Political Science

Comparative Politics, Political Economy, Energy and Environmental Politics

Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin

Dr. Bayulgen specializes on the political economy of energy transitions, environmental politics, democratization and development. She has conducted extensive field work in Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Norway, and Turkey with the help of numerous external and university grants. She teaches a range of comparative politics courses, including introduction to comparative politics, politics of Russia and the former Soviet Union, comparative democratization, politics of oil, introduction to non-western politics and sustainable energy.

Selected Publications

• Twisting in the Wind: The Politics of Tepid Transitions to Renewable Energy, (University of Michigan Press 2022)
• Foreign Investment and Political Regimes: The Oil Sector in Azerbaijan, Russia, and Norway, (Cambridge University Press 2010)
• “Tilting at Windmills? Electoral Repercussions of Wind Turbine Projects in Minnesota,” Energy Politics 159 (December 2021) 112636 (co-authored with Carol Atkinson-Palombo, Mary Buchanan and Lyle Scruggs)
• “Localizing the Energy Transition: Town-Level Political and Economic Drivers of Clean Energy in the United States,” Energy Research and Social Science 62 (2020)
•  “Green Priorities: How Economic Frames Affect Perceptions of Renewable Energy in the United States,” Energy Research and Social Science 47 (2019): 28-36 (co-authored with Salil Benegal)
• “Against All Odds: Elite Strategies of Survival and Autocratic Reversal and Resilience in Turkey,” Polity 50:3 (2018): 333-365 (co-authored with Ekim Arbatli and Sercan Canbolat)
  • Recipient of the Polity Best Research Article in 2018 (presented at the 2019 Northeastern Political Science Association Awards Event at NPSA Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, Nov 7-9, 2019).
• “Vetoing the Future: Political Constraints and Renewable Energy,” Environmental Politics 26:1 (2017): 49-70 (co-authored with Jeffrey W. Ladewig)
• “Microcredit and Political Empowerment in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan,” International Journal of Development Issues 14:2 (June 2015): 130-148.
  • Recipient of the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence- Outstanding Paper Award in International Journal of Development Issues, 2016
• “Cold War Redux in US-Russia Relations The Effects of US Media Framing and Public Opinion of the 2008 Russia-Georgia War,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 46:4 (2013): 513-527 (co-authored with Ekim Arbatli)
• “Two-Steps Forward, One-Step Back: How Politics Dim the Lights on Turkey’s Renewable Energy Future,” Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs 18:4 (Winter 2013): 71-98
• “Giving Credit Where Credit is Due: Can Access to Credit be Justified As a New Economic Right?” Journal of Human Rights 12:4 (December 2013): 491-510
• “Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank and the Nobel Peace Prize: How Political Science Can Contribute to the Wider Implications of Microcredit,” International Studies Review 10:3 (2008): 525-547