Nikos Christofis is associate professor of Turkish history and politics at the Centre for Turkish Studies and staff member of the School of History and Civilizations at Shaanxi Normal University. He is also a researcher at the Research Center for the Black Studies at the same university and affiliate researcher at the Netherlands Institute at Athens in Greece. He holds a PhD in Area Studies from Leiden University, the Netherlands (2015); an MA from Manchester University (2004); and a BA from the University of Cyprus (2003). He is a comparative political historian working on Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. He is the series editor for New Directions in Turkish Studies (Oxford and New York: Berghahn) and Mediterranean Politics (London: Transnational Press).

Academic Honours and Awards/Recognitions

PhD Scholarship, State Scholarship Foundation, Greece 2006-2010

Post-doctoral fellowship, University of Macedonia, Greece 2018-2019

Post-doctoral fellowship, Rsearch Centre for the Humanities (RCH), 2017-2018

Research interests:

Theories of Nationalism; Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism; Colonialism, anti-colonialism, and post-colonialism; Ethnicity and Identity; Politics of Memory; Theories of History and Historiography; Cold War; Comparative Political Regimes; Politics of Power and Identity; Democratization and Authoritarianism; Institutions and Political Parties; Foreign Policy.

Publications

Monographs

N. Christofis, From Kemalism to Radicalism: The Turkish Student Movement, 1923-1980, Athens: Topos, 2021 (in Greek).

Edited books

N. Christofis (ed.), Elections and Earthquakes: Quo Vadis Turkey?, London: Transnational Press, 2023

N. Christofis and A. Derisiotis (eds.), A Century of Greek-Turkish Relations: A Handbook, London: Transnational Press, 2023.

N. Christofis (ed.) Between Nation and Class: The Lefts and the Cyprus Question, 1920-1974, Thessaloniki: Psifides, 2022 (in Greek)

N. Christofis (ed.), Erdoğan’s “New” Turkey: Before and After the Coup Attempt, Athens: Leader Books, 2022 (in Greek)

N. Christofis (ed.), The Kurds in Erdoğan’s ‘New’ Turkey: Domestic and International Implications, London and New York: Routledge, 2022 (paperback); 2021 (hardback)

N. Christofis (ed.), Erdoğan’s ‘New Turkey’: Attempted Coup d’état and the Acceleration of Crisis in Modern Turkey, London and New York: Routledge, 2021 (paperback); 2020 (hardback)

N. Christofis and T. Kyritsi (eds.), Cypriot Nationalisms in Context: History, Politics, and Identity, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2019 (paperback); 2018 (hardback)

N. Christofis (ed.), War and Resistance in Thessaly: Aspects of its History during the 1940s,  Athens: Topos, 2017 (in Greek).

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles and Book Chapters (since SNNU)

N. Christofis, “Anadolu Kampanyası Sırasında “Öteki” olarak Türk: Basının Bakışı”, Tarih ve Toplum: Yeni Yaklaşımlar, vol. 22, 2023 (forthcoming/accepted)

N. Christofis and A. Logotheti, “Between Political Survival and Regional Power: The Justice and Development Party and Cyprus, 2002-2017”, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 50, no. 1, 2023, pp. 1-18.

N. Christofis, “Kemalism vs Erdoğanism: Continuities and Discontinuities in Turkey’s Hegemonic State Ideology”, Middle East Critique, vol. 32, no. 4, 2023, Doi: 10.1080/19436149.2023.2251329

N. Christofis, “How do Modern Greeks think of Athens and Why?”, 长安学研究, vol. 8, 2023, pp. 3-12.

N. Christofis, “Turkish Policies vis-à-vis Christians: From Exclusion to Inclusion to Exclusion Again”, in S. Roussos (ed.), From Pluralism to Extinction? Perspectives and Challenges for Christians in the Middle East, London: Transnational Press, 2023, pp. 93-112.

N. Christofis, “Deviating from the National Narrative: The Workers’ Party of Turkey and Cyprus”, in A. Yenen and E. J. Zürcher (eds.), A Hundred Years of Republican Turkey: A History in a Hundred Fragments, Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2023, pp. 247-252.

N. Christofis and K. Öktem, “The Use and Abuse of History: On Greek-Turkish Relations”, in N. Christofis and A. Derisiotis (eds.), A Century of Greek-Turkish Relations: A Handbook, London: Transnational Press, 2023

N. Christofis, “Greek-Turkish Relations and Cyprus, 1940s–1990s”, in N. Christofis and A. Deriziotis (eds.), A Century of Greek-Turkish Relations: A Handbook, London: Transnational Press, 2023

N. Christofis, “Türkiye’de Öğrenci Hareketi 1923-1980: İşbirliğinden Otonomiye Radikalizme”, in Doğan Çetinkaya (ed.), Cumhuriyet'in 100 Yilli: Toplumsal Hareketler, Istanbul: Tarih Vakfi, 2023.

N. Christofis, “The Politicisation of the Kurds during the 1960s and the Role of the Left”, in A. Deriziotis, M. Issi and N. Christofis (eds), The Kurds in Turkey: From the Late Ottoman Empire to the Present Day, Patras: University of Patras Press, 2023, pp. 63-85 (in Greek)

N. Christofis and C. Mais, “Miners and class struggle in interwar Cyprus”, Twentieth Century Communism: A Journal of International History, vol. 23, 2022, pp. 117-143.

N. Christofis, “Securitizing the Aegean: De-Europeanizing Greek–Turkish Relations”, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, vol. 22, no. 1, 2022, pp. 83-100.

N. Christofis, “Struggle for Power, Struggle for Survival: Competing Narratives of the 15 July 2016 Coup Attempt in Turkey”, in E. Μascha et al. (eds), Annual series Greek Asylum Service Miscellaneous Writings, Athens: Nomiki Vivliothiki, 2022, pp. 77-93.

N. Christofis, “The Kurds in Erdoğan’s ‘New’ Turkey: Domestic and International Implications”, in N. Christofis (ed.), The Kurds in Erdoğan’s “New” Turkey: Domestic and International Implications, New York and London, Routledge, 2022, pp. 1-21.

N. Christofis, “The Left, Colonialism, and Nationalism: The Cyprus Case”, in N. Christofis (ed.), Between Nation and Class: The Lefts and the Cyprus Question, 1920-1974, Thessaloniki: Psifides, 2022, pp. 21-56.

N. Christofis and A. C. An, “The Turkish Cypriot Left and the Problems of Cooperation with the Greek Cypriot Left”, in N. Christofis (ed.), Between Nation and Class: The Lefts and the Cyprus Question, 1920-1974, Thessaloniki: Psifides, 2022, pp. 113-177.

N. Christofis, “The Workers’ Party of Turkey and Cyprus: Anti-Imperialism, Nationalism, Kemalism”, in N. Christofis (ed.), Between Nation and Class: The Lefts and the Cyprus Question, 1920-1974, Thessaloniki: Psifides, 2022, pp. 281-336.

N. Christofis, “The acceleration of political crisis in Erdoğan’s Turkey”, in N. Christofis (ed.), Erdoğan’s ‘New’ Turkey: Before and After the Attempted Coup, Athens: Leader Books, 2022, pp. 27-64

N. Christofis, ‘“You sleep with the devil; you wake up in hell!”: On the new EU-Turkey Deal’, The Commentaries, vol. 1, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1–7

N. Christofis, “Bogazici University Protests: A Battle for Academic Freedom, A Battle for Democracy”, Contemporary Issues, vol. 150, 2021, pp. 17-21 (in Greek).

N. Christofis, “From the Global to the Local: Turkey in the Long 60s”, Turkish Historical Review, vol. 12, no. 2-3, 2021, pp. 106-128.

N. Christofis, “‘Turkey will be a second France, unless our demands are satisfied’: Turkish Student Movement in the Long 1960s”, Turkish Historical Review, vol. 12, no. 2-3, 2021, pp. 155-181

N. Christofis, ‘“You sleep with the devil; you wake up in hell!”: On the new EU-Turkey Deal’, in J. Jongerden, C. Gunes, and B. S. Day (ed.), The Commentaries, London: Transnational Press, 2021, pp. 1–8 (reprint)

N. Christofis, “Coups and State Formation in Turkey”, in J. Jongerden (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Turkey, London and New York: Routledge, 2021, pp. 131-143.

N. Christofis, “Government and Politics”, in E. Thomopoulos (ed.), Modern Greece, Santa Barbara, California and Denver: Westview, ABC-CLIO, 2021, pp. 69-96.

N. Christofis, “Authoritarian Neoliberalism as a Framework to Understand Turkey”, Review of International Affairs, Nicos Poulantzas Institute, vol. 1-2, 2020, pp. 137-150 (in Greek).

N. Christofis, “The Politicization of Ayia Sofia: From the “Islam in the Nation” to the “Nation in Islam”, Contemporary Issues, vol. 149, 2020, pp. 28-31 (in Greek).

N. Christofis, “英国和塞浦路斯：从未有过“兵戎相见”, The Turkish Studies Journal, vol. 1, no. 2, 2020, pp. 50-55 (in Chinese)

N. Christofis, “Milliyetçilik ve Anti-Emperyalizmin Arasında: Kıbrıs Meselesinde Yunan ve Türk Solu”, Toplumsal Tarih, vol. 316, 2020, pp. 56-61 (in Turkish)

N. Christofis and B. Li, “新的地理想象和区域形象: 土耳其外交政策再评析”, 当代世界 (Contemporary World), no. 2, February, pp. 20-26

N. Christofis, “Accelerating Political Crisis in Erdoğan’s Turkey”, in N. Christofis (ed.), Erdoğan’s ‘New’ Turkey: Attempted Coup d’état and the Acceleration of Political Crisis, London and New York: Routledge, 2020, pp. 1-28.

N. Christofis, 土耳其近期地方选举及其政治影响, Journal of Fujian Normal University, vol. 3, 2019, pp. 62–74

N. Christofis, B. Baser and A. E. Öztürk, “The View from Next Door: Greek-Turkish Relations after the Coup Attempt in Turkey”, The International Spectator, vol. 54, no. 2, 2019, pp. 67-86.

N. Christofis, “The State of the Kurds in the ‘New’ Turkey”, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 251-259.

N. Christofis, “The Foreign Policy of the ‘New Turkey’: Priorities, Challenges and Contradictions”, New Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 9, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-12.

N. Christofis, “Restructuring the ‘New Turkey’: Between Kemalism and Erdoğanisation”, Annual Review of History, Society and Politics, vol. 5, 2019, pp. 30-47

N. Christofis, “War, Revolution, and Diplomacy: The October Revolution of 1917 and the Turkish Anatolian Resistance Movement, 1919-1922”, in D. Stamatopoulos (ed.), European Revolutions and the Ottoman Balkans: War, Nationalism and Empire from Napoleon to the Bolsheviks, London and New York: Bloomsbury/I. B. Tauris and BIAA, 2019, pp. 243-262.

N. Christofis, “Turkey’s Justice and Development Government vis-à-vis the Muslim Minority in Greece”, in M. Hatay and Z. Tziarras (eds.), Kinship and Diasporas in Turkish Foreign Policy: Examples from Europe, the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean, Nicosia: PRIO Cyprus, 2019, pp. 59-71.

 N. Christofis, “World System Theory”, in S. Romaniuk, M. Thapa, and P. Marton (eds.), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Security Studies, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2019 [DOI:

N. Christofis, “Peacebuilding”, in S. Romaniuk, M. Thapa, and P. Marton (eds.), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Security Studies, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2019 [DOI:

N. Christofis, “Kemalism, Erdoğanism and the Restructuring of Turkey”, The Turkish Studies Journal, vol. 1, no. 1, 2018, pp. 122-141.

N. Christofis, “The AKP’s ‘Yeni Türkiye’: Challeging the Kemalist Narrative?”, Mediterranean Quarterly: A Journal of Global Issues, vol. 29, no. 3, 2018, pp. 11-32.

N. Christofis, “The Cyprus Question and the 6-7 September Events in Turkey: Greek-Turkish Relations and its Reflection in Cyprus”, Documento, September 2018, pp. 39-45

N. Christofis, “Politics and Nationalism in Cyprus”, Oxford Bibliographies, 2018 [DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199743292-0240]

N. Christofis and T. Kyritsi), “Introduction: Cypriot Nationalism(s) in Context”, in T. Kyritsi and N. Christofis (eds.), Cypriot Nationalisms in Context: History, Politics, and Identity, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2018, pp. 1-22.

N. Christofis, “Encountering Imperialism and Colonialism: The Greek and Turkish Left in Cyprus”, in T. Kyritsi and N. Christofis (eds.), Cypriot Nationalisms in Context: History, Politics, and Identity, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2018, pp. 283-305.

N. Christofis and A. Logotheti) “Turkey in Syriza’s Foreign Policy, 2015-2017”, in Z. M. Uzuner (ed.), The Role of the Image in the Greek-Turkish Relations, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2018, pp. 103-120.