I completed my B.A. studies in Political Science and Public Administration program at the Middle East Technical University, Turkey in 2007 with a minor degree from History. During the last year of my B.A. program, I was an exchange student at the University of Bergen, Norway for a semester. As a graduate student, I enrolled to Bilkent University’s Political Science program. During the two years I spent there, I took many courses on different sub-disciplines of political science such as cultural studies, political theory, comparative politics and Turkish politics. After taking a Master without thesis degree from Bilkent University, I came to Oldenburg in November 2009. Before starting my Ph.D. studies, I received my second Master without thesis degree from Oldenburg University’s Social Sciences Institute in the summer of 2011. In 2014, my paper titled "Mainstream Parties’ Strategies toward Ethnic Niche Parties: How do political parties in Turkey respond to the Kurdish issue?" received the Peter Mair Award for the Best Student Paper in the 24th ECPR Ph.D. Summer School on “Political Parties in New Democracies” in Lüneburg. In the summer of 2015, I received my Ph.D. from Oldenburg University, and currently, I am working here as a post-doc researcher.

My main research interests include democratization, and ethnic and religious politics with a special focus on Turkey. In Oldenburg University, I teach courses on democratization, and political movements in the Middle East.

• Öney, B. (2019). Ethnicity and Party Politics in Turkey The Rise of the Kurdish Party during the Kurdish Opening Process. Oxon: Routledge.

• Öney, B. (2020). The Ideological Dimensionality in the Middle Eastern and North African Constitutions: A New Era in the Evolution of Islamic Constitutionalism. Political Studies Review.
   
• Öney, B. (2018). What Kind of Democracy for Whom? Exploring the Role of Political Islam, Conservatism, Advanced Democracy, and Majoritarianism in the Ideological Premises of President Erdogan (2014-2017) The Journal of Turkish Studies 1(1): 167-187.
   
• Öney, B. (2018). Constitutional Debate in Turkey: From Dominant Party Heresthetical Strategy to Single-Party Hegemony, Quantitative Text Analyses Mediterranean Quarterly 29(3): 33-54.
   
• Öney, B. and Torsten J. Selck (2017). What was the 'Kurdish Opening' all about? A Qualitative Text Analysis of Parliamentary Group Speeches in Turkey, Ethnicities 17(6): 771-91.
   
• Öney, B. and Torsten J. Selck (2017). Exploring the Level of Party System Institutionalization and Party System Type in Turkey: A Convergence on Established or on New Democracies?, Turkish Studies 18(2): 209-28

Conference Papers

• Ardag, M.M., Öney, B., Wuthrich, F.M. (2020). Drawing the cognitive map of Turkish politics: An attitude network approach with representative samples Abstract accepted to IPSA Annual Meeting 2020, Lisbon, Portugal
• Öney, B. (2018). Political Party Ideology and Gender Politics: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Election Manifestos 2002-2018 Paper presented at Turkologentag, Bamberg, Germany
• Öney, B., Ardag, M.M. (2018). Political Culture in Turkey: Perceptions on democracy, citizenship, and support for a strong leader. Evidence from two representative samples Paper presented at the ECPR General Conference, Hamburg, Germany
• Öney, B. (2017). Deconstructing 'the Nation': Quantitative Text Analysis of President Erdogan's Speeches 2014-2017 Paper presented at Turkey in Transition (?): Before and After the Attempted July Coup, Athens, Greece
• Öney, B. (2014). Mainstream Parties' Strategies Toward Ethnic Niche Parties: How do Political Parties Respond to the Kurdish Issue? Paper presented at the 24th ECPR PhD Summer School on Political Parties in New Democracies, Lüneburg, Germany