Müjge Küçükkeleş

Researcher and Policy Consultant

Müjge is a researcher and policy consultant with 10 years of experience in the design, implementation and monitoring of youth empowerment, peace building and political party programmes in Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan. After years of practical experience in political and democratic reform in Turkey, she began her PhD in 2017 at the University of Kent on the functioning of global governance regime in non-state and fragile contexts of the Middle East, with a particular focus on Iraqi Kurdistan. During her PhD, she taught conflict and terrorism courses at the University of Kent and worked as a visiting fellow at the Centre for Peace and Human Security of American University of Kurdistan, Iraq.

Before starting her PhD, she worked as a program officer at International Republican Institute’s Turkey office and worked directly with the Turkish government, political parties, parliament and local authorities. She managed several political party programs, involving policy research, polling, and cross-party policy-based youth and women roundtables. As well as her practical project management experience, Müjge has also written extensively on democracy, Kurdish issue and Turkish politics for outlets including Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Atlantic Council and Open Democracy. Müjge holds an MA from the University of Warwick on the influence of transnational governance on Turkey’s Kurdish minority rights.