Urban Politics

Cities are read here as arenas where power gets contested through space — who lives where, who gets displaced, whose neighborhood becomes a "regeneration" project — with the Turkish experience of rapid urbanization and migration as the central case for testing global theory. You will work through critical urban thinkers (Lefebvre, Harvey, Castells, feminist and Southern critiques) and apply them to concrete dynamics like gentrification, gated enclaves, and subaltern mobilization, mostly via a research project, presentation, report, and final. It builds on the political science core by pushing you to treat urban form itself as political, and pairs naturally with work on migration, inequality, and Turkish politics.