DSPS Outstanding Dissertation Awards 2021

June 21, 2021

The Doctoral School grants a recognition to outstanding dissertations defended each academic year.

The award is a recognition to dissertations that stand out because of their originality and academic rigor.

This academic year, the recipients of the DSPS Outstanding Dissertation Award are Jakov Bojovic and Görkem Atsungur.

The title of Jakov's dissertation is: "Beyond 'Ever Closer Union': The Juncker Commission’s Ambition in Migration and Economic Policy".

Jakov's dissertation investigates the European Commission as a policy entrepreneur in so-called new areas of EU activities such as migration and economic policy. It takes on hypotheses generated by New Intergovernmentalism, and in particular whether the Commission is at all hardwired to pursue 'ever closer Union', or in fact, has other ambitions, such as the empowerment of de novo bodies, new types of integration or coordination policies, or acting politically by pursuing policy changes within the existing institutional architecture, and the extent to which it actively pursues those ambitions.

And Görkem's dissertation title is: "The Dual Process of Identity Formation and Collective Mobilization from Below: Turkish Diaspora on Kinship Care in Germany".

In his dissertation he makes a number of innovative contributions to contemporary research on identities of transnational (migrant) communities by highlighting the agency of Turkish diaspora in constructing its own identity through mobilization and political action in Germany around the issue of kinship care. Görkem combines the methods of on-side and digital ethnographies and builds on the impressive record of empirical evidence he collected through the interviews and participant observation of Turkish diaspora in the selected localities in German North-Rhine Westphalia and the digital data collection in Google Search, Facebook, and Instagram. He performs the extensive qualitative analysis of the narratives and discourses and traces their use in constructing “us vs. them” perceptions and mobilizing collective action. He also analyzes the spillover-effects of the online and offline activities of Turkish diaspora; and the interaction within the diaspora group and with German and Turkish authorities and ordinary citizens. Görkem’s findings are highly relevant to understand the dynamics of Turkish diaspora in Germany. Furthermore, his conceptual approach has a great potential to travel to other migrant communities and their host countries.

Congratulations!

Both dissertations are available at the CEU library: Electronic Theses & Dissertations (ETD) (ceu.edu).

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