Damla Cihangir-Tetik
Associate Professor Damla Cihangir-Tetik
Consultant
Assoc. Prof. Damla Cihangir-Tetik is an academician and expert in International Relations (IR), European Union (EU) Politics and Governance, Turkish Politics and foreign policy, EU-Türkiye-Southeast Asia relations, development and cooperation policy, emerging powers and global governance, and transparency. Currently, she is a part-time lecturer of IR at Istanbul Nisantasi University, Türkiye, and the Fulbright University Vietnam (FUV).
Recently, she conducted a research project entitled “Foreign Policy Making: Media and Elite Perceptions of Türkiye and the European Union in Vietnam” at the Fulbright School of Public Policy and Management (FSPPM) in FUV, awarded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK). She is the first Turkish IR scholar who conducted field research in Vietnam, enriched her knowledge of Vietnam and Southeast Asia, and developed relations with Vietnamese, Turkish, and European officials, business people, and civil society members.
After graduating from Sabanci University, Social and Political Sciences (2007), Damla received the prestigious Jean Monnet Scholarship of the European Commission to conduct her graduate studies at King’s College London in European Studies (2008). Later, she had her second M.A. in Southeast European Studies at the University of Athens (2009). During her M.A. studies in Athens, Greece, she worked as a researcher at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). She worked as an expert and project coordinator at several think tanks and civil society organizations in Istanbul and Brussels, such as the Economic Development Foundation (IKV), Istanbul Policy Center (IPC), and Transparency International (TI) Türkiye.
She was among the experts who actively lobbied for Türkiye’s EU accession with relevant stakeholders from Turkish and European business, academia, civil society, and governments. She authored several reports and publications and attended international conferences and meetings to support Turkish businesses’ harmonization of EU rules and regulations. She coordinated international and EU-funded projects to increase transparency in politics and business and support political reform in Türkiye.
Damla has received her Ph.D. degree in political science from Sabanci University, Türkiye (2017). Her Ph.D. dissertation was on the role of the development and cooperation policies of Türkiye and the EU in their relations and foreign policies. After receiving a Ph.D., she worked at Istanbul Topkapi University and later at Istanbul University, Faculty of Political Sciences, Political Science and International Relations Department between 2018 and 2024. Damla became an Associate Professor of IR in May 2024.
She has several academic publications in distinguished journals and books, including the Journal of European Integration, the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, the Routledge Handbook of EU-Middle East Relations, and the Routledge Handbook of Parliamentary Administrations. She authors Op-Eds and short policy papers in online Turkish media networks. She has been participating in the most prestigious international academic conferences, including the International Studies Association (ISA) and the European Union Studies Association (EUSA) Conferences.
