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Professor

Room: E2.20

O.Atikcan@warwick.ac.uk

Advice and Feedback Hours:

I am a Professor of Politics and International Studies and the Director of the ESRC-accredited Doctoral Training Partnership, Midlands Graduate School.

I am also the Principal Investigator of the FRAMENET project, a Co-Investigator of the project, and a member of Jean Monnet Network on .

Profile

I joined PAIS as an Assistant Professor in September 2016 and have been a Professor since August 2021. Before PAIS, I was based at Université Laval, Canada. I completed my doctoral programme in political science at McGill University in Canada and I was also a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence of Université de Montréal-McGill University.

My work has appeared in , , , , , , and as books with , and .

Research Interests

My research examines how political ideas, discourse, and institutional contexts shape public policy and democratic governance in Europe and beyond. I am particularly interested in how frames, narratives, and emotions influence decision-making in multilevel and transnational settings, including referendums, global governance institutions, and regulatory politics. Across my work, I combine insights from political psychology, comparative politics, and international political economy to understand how legitimacy, authority, and power are constructed and contested.

A central strand of my research focuses on political communication and democratic participation. My work on EU and UK referendums analyses how political actors mobilise emotional and symbolic frames to shape public opinion in moments of high political salience. Drawing on over 160 elite interviews, media analysis, and public opinion data, I demonstrate how discourse can affect democratic legitimacy and political choice, challenging purely rationalist accounts of voter behaviour.

I also examine the role of moral beliefs in shaping political conflict using insights from Moral Foundations Theory. In my research on the Irish abortion referendum and the US gun control debate, I analyse how competing moral foundations, such as care, harm, and individual freedom, structure political framing, influence voter persuasion, and contribute to polarisation in contentious policy debates.

More recently, my research has expanded to the study of policy frames and idea diffusion in global governance. As Principal Investigator of the FRAMENET project, I investigate how ideas about human rights, migration, modern slavery, environmental protection, global health, and artificial intelligence circulate through international organisations, NGOs, and government networks. This work pioneers the use of Discourse Network Analysis to trace actor coalitions and the transnational diffusion of policy ideas across complex and overlapping institutional settings in global public policy.

Finally, I am developing new research on trade, regulation, and hybrid governance arrangements in response to global and planetary challenges. This new project explores how public-private partnerships, regulatory hybrids, and emerging governance institutions address issues such as climate change and space governance. Methodologically, my research focuses on comparative research design, combining qualitative fieldwork with computational text analysis and network methods.

Teaching and supervision

I teach undergraduate and postgraduate modules on Comparative Politics and European Integration.

I have supervised over 10 PhD students to date, and I am keen to supervise PhD students whose proposals relate to the research interests noted above.

Publications

Monographs:

, (Cambridge University Press, October 2015).

, (McGill-Queen’s University Press, May 2020).
Co-authored with Richard Nadeau and Éric Bélanger.

Edited textbook:

, (Oxford University Press, 2021).
Co-edited with Jean Frédéric Morin and Christian Olsson.

Special Issues:
, Geopolitics, October 2025.
Co-edited with Achim Hurrelmann and Gabriel Siles-Brügge.

Refereed journal articles:

'’, European Political Science Review, forthcoming.
Co-authored with Louis Stockwell.

'’, European Politics and Society, forthcoming.
Co-authored with Seda Gurkan and George Christou.

, Political Psychology, vol.45, no.1, 193-210, 2024.
Co-authored with Karen Hand.

, Journal of European Public Policy, 31 (1), 239–268, 2023.
Co-authored with Elise Antoine and Adam Chalmers.

'', Journal of Elections Public Opinion and Parties, vol.31, no.1, 77-96, 2021.
Co-authored with Richard Nadeau and Éric Bélanger.

'’, Journal of Public Policy, vol.39, no.4, 543-564, 2019.
Co-authored with Adam Chalmers.

'', European Journal of Political Research, vol.57, no.1, 93-115, February 2018.

‘’, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol.53, no.3, 937-956, September 2015.

‘’, Journal of European Integration, vol.37, no.4, 451-470, February 2015.

‘’, Turkish Studies, vol.13, no.3,449-470, September 2012.
Co-authored with Kerem Oge.

‘’, Journal of European Integration, vol.32, no.4, 375-392, July 2010.

Book chapters:

‘The Shifting Will of the People: The Case of EU Referendums’, in Julie Smith, ed., Palgrave Handbook on European Referendums, (Palgrave, forthcoming).

‘Referendums on European Integration’, in Laurence Morel and Matt Qvortrup, eds., , (Routledge, 2017).

‘Les référendums et les élections européennes’, in Olivier Costa and Frédéric Mérand, eds., , (Larcier, 2018).

‘Direct Democracy: Remedying the Democratic Deficit?’, in Finn Laursen, ed., (Routledge: 2013).

Policy papers and blogs:

‘’, European Politics and Policy (EUROPP) blog, The London School of Economics and Political Science, November 2020.

‘’, British Politics and Policy blog, The London School of Economics and Political Science, May 2019.

'', International Journal 74 (3), 453-462.
Co-authored with Achim Hurrelmann, Adam William Chalmers and Crina Viju-Miljusevic.

', openDemocracy blog, March 2016. (Guest Editors with Claudia Sternberg)

', openDemocracy blog, March 2016.

‘?’, European Politics and Policy (EUROPP) blog, The London School of Economics and Political Science, October 2015.

Working papers:

‘’, Sussex European Institute Working Papers, no.85, May 2006.

Media:

'?', video explainer, The Guardian, 24 August 2018.