Professor of International Relations, University of Cambridge

Ayşe is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Cambridge, where she also has an appointment as a Politics Fellow at Emmanuel College.

Ayşe grew up in Istanbul, Turkey and moved to the US to attend Middlebury College, Vermont (BA in Political Science and Classical Studies). Her graduate degrees are from University of Wisconsin - Madison (MA and PhD in Political Science). After graduation, Ayşe worked as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Politics at Washington & Lee University, Virginia, until moving to Cambridge University in 2013.

Ayşe's research is at the intersection of historical sociology and IR, focusing on East-West relations in the international system, history and future of world order(s), conceptualisations of modernity and sovereignty, rising and declining powers, and Turkish politics in a comparative perspective. Her articles have appeared in journals such as International Organization, International Theory, International Studies Quarterly, European Journal of International Relations, Review of International Studies, International Relations, International Studies Review, Journal of Democracy, Cooperation and Conflict.

Ayşe is the author of After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West (Cambridge University Press, 2011), which deals with international stigmatisation and the integration of defeated non-Western powers (Turkey after WWI, Japan after WWII and Russia after the Cold War) into the international system. This book was also published in Turkish as Yenilgiden Sonra: Doğu Batı ile Yaşamayı Nasıl Öğrendi from Koç University Press (2012), with a new introduction Ayşe wrote for Turkish readers. A second Turkish edition was published in 2019. Between 2013 and 2017, Ayşe oversaw an international collaboration aimed at theorising Hierarchies in World Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2017) [runner up for 2019 ISA Theory section prize]. Ayşe's most recent book, Before the West: the Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders (Cambridge University Press, 2022), advances an alternative global history for IR focused on (Eur)asia. This book also retheorises sovereignty, order and decline from a more global perspective.

Ayşe's research has been recognised by a number of funding institutions and professional associations: she has held fellowships funded by the Council on Foreign Affairs (as IAF), CRASSH (University of Cambridge), the Norwegian Nobel Institute and the University of Copenhagen/ERC. Ayşe currently sit on the editorial boards of the following journals: International Organization, Review of International Studies, International Theory, International Relations, International Studies Review​, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Global Constitutionalism, Relaciones Internacionales and New Area Studies. Since 2010, Ayşe has been a member of the PONARS Eurasia international academic network which advances new policy approaches to research and security in Russia and Eurasia. Ayşe also authors policy memos, edited book chapters, book reviews and pieces for a more general audience.