Oksan Bayulgen

Department Head and Professor

Political Science

Comparative Politics, Political Economy, Politics of Post-Soviet region, International Relations

Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin

Oksan Bayulgen received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 2003. She teaches a range of comparative politics courses, including introduction to comparative politics, politics of Russia and the former Soviet Union, comparative democratization, foreign policy of Russia, politics of oil, introduction to non-western politics and sustainable energy. Her research focuses on the political economy of energy and democratization in the post-Soviet and the Middle East regions. She has conducted extensive field-work in Azerbaijan, Russia, Norway, Kazakhstan, and Turkey. She is currently working on a project analyzing the politics of renewable energy development in Turkey.

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