STORY

Onur İşçi

Onur İşçi is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University. A historian of international relations, his work explores the intertwined histories of Turkey, Russia, and the wider Black Sea and Eurasian regions—from the final decades of the Russian and Ottoman empires to the geopolitical transformations of the Cold War and the present day.

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His academic journey began at Bilkent University, where he completed both his B.A. and M.A. degrees in International Relations. His early research on the final years of imperial Russia led him toward the study of history and set the foundations for a career devoted to understanding how war, revolution, diplomacy, and historical memory shape relations between states. He subsequently earned an M.A. in History from Miami University and another from Georgetown University, before completing his Ph.D. in History at Georgetown with distinction in 2014.

While completing his doctoral studies, İşçi taught at Georgetown University as a Royden B. Davis Lecturer in the School of Foreign Service. He returned to Bilkent University in 2014 as an assistant professor of International Relations, remaining there until 2023. During this period, he also directed Bilkent’s Center for Russian Studies, developing it into a forum for research, conferences, and international dialogue on Russia, Eurasia, the Black Sea, and Turkish–Russian relations. He later joined Kadir Has University as an associate professor before moving to Boğaziçi University in 2025.

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At the center of İşçi’s scholarship is a deceptively simple question: how does the past continue to shape the choices that states make in the present? His research challenges interpretations based solely on immediate strategic interests. Instead, it demonstrates how inherited fears, historical experiences, economic ambitions, domestic political pressures, and competing visions of international order influence foreign policy over long periods of time.

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This approach is particularly visible in his work on Turkish–Russian relations. Rather than treating Turkey and Russia as permanently hostile rivals or naturally compatible partners, İşçi reconstructs a more complex relationship marked by alternating periods of confrontation, cooperation, interdependence, and mutual suspicion. His scholarship follows this relationship across imperial collapse, revolution, world war, Cold War alignment, economic rapprochement, and the re-emergence of Russia as a central actor in Turkey’s foreign relations.

İşçi has published extensively in leading international journals, including Diplomatic History, Turkish Studies, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, the Journal of Contemporary History, and Russian History. His research covers subjects ranging from the Montreux Convention and Turkey’s wartime neutrality to Soviet–Turkish industrial cooperation, the origins of Turkey’s postwar alignment with the West, and the longer history of Russian–Turkish economic relations.

Alongside his academic publications, İşçi contributes to wider debates about international affairs. His essays and analyses have appeared in publications such as Foreign Affairs, War on the Rocks, The National Interest, and the Texas National Security Review. Through this work, he brings historical depth to contemporary discussions of Turkish foreign policy, Russia, the Black Sea, and the changing international order.

His achievements include Georgetown University’s distinction award for his doctoral dissertation, the Cosmos Club of Washington’s Young Scholar Award, the Royden B. Davis Fellowship, and research support from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye. His current TÜBİTAK-supported research examines the historical dynamics and economic foundations of Turkish–Russian relations.

As a scholar, author, and educator, Onur İşçi works across the boundaries of history and international relations. His research combines archival investigation with diplomatic history and foreign-policy analysis, reconstructing the decisions of political leaders while remaining attentive to the societies, institutions, economic interests, and historical narratives that surrounded them. The result is a body of work that connects the collapse of empires to the dilemmas of contemporary international politics.