About

Ahmet Öncü is a professor of sociology in the School of Management.

Professor Öncü’s scholarship is grounded in theories and methods found in the fields of social theory, historical sociology and political economy with an application to topics and issues pertaining to the Turkish social formation. His research primarily falls into three themes and related broad research questions:  grounding Turkish modernity and capitalism on social theory; political economy of class dynamics and their implications for social and cultural change; and social, political and moral foundations of democracy and citizenship.

Professor Öncü’s articles appeared in Current History, Journal of Historical Sociology, Review of Radical Political Economics, Science and Society, Citizenship Studies, International Review of Sociology, Sociology of Islam, New Perspectives on Turkey, Research and Policy on Turkey, Cultural Logic, THE NET Journal of Political Science, Felsefelogos, Usatölyesi, Norwegian Journal of Migration Research, Toplum ve Bilim,  METU Studies in Development and Mülkiye.

Selected Recent Publications

“The Achilles’ Heel of Turkey’s Left: an Analysis of the State within the Debates of the Turkish Left of 1960-71 from Karatani’s Capital-Nation-State Framework” (in Turkish). Çalışma ve Toplum 60:1: 39-78, 2019. (With Özgür Mutlu Ulus).

“Convergence and Competition among the New Turkish Middle Classes.” Current History 117:803: 350-354, 2018. (With E. Balkan).

“Hakk or Right: A Veblenian Narration of the Differences between the Justice Notions in Western Europe and Turkey.” Journal of Historical Sociology DOI: 10.1111/johs. 12210, 2018.

“Turkish Social Political Economy History in the Light of Dugger’s Reconstructed Concepts of Veblenian Institutionalism.” Forum for Social Economics DOI:10.1080/07360932.2018.1458327, 2018.

Neoliberal Landscape and the Rise of Islamist Capital in Turkey. 2nd edition with a new introduction. New York and Cambridge: Berghahn, 2017. (With Neşecan Balkan and Erol Balkan).

On the Social Origin of the Turkish Leisure Class: For a Veblenian Turn in the Marxian Research Program of Turkish Studies. In Sidney Plotkin (ed.), The Anthem Companion to Thorstein Veblen. London: Anthem, 2017.

The Leisure Class of the Asiatic Mode of Production: Turkey in the Light of Divitçioğlu and Veblen (In Turkish). In Hasan Cömert, Emre Özçelik and Ebru Voyvoda (eds), Turkey in the Light of Development Economics (In Turkish). Istanbul: İletişim, 2017.

“On the Possibility of a ‘Soviet of Technicians’: Veblen’s Cumulative Causation Applied to the Turkish Case.” Review of Radical Political Economics 49:1: 67-82, 2017.

Absentee Ownership and Its Discontents: Critical Essays on the Legacy of Thorstein Veblen, New York: ISLET, 2016. (With Michael Hudson).

Business Ideology and Engineers as Vanishing Mediators: A Reflection on Veblen’s Theory of Engineers. In Michael Hudson and Ahmet Öncü (eds), Absentee Ownership and Its Discontents: Critical Essays on the Legacy of Thorstein Veblen, New York: ISLET, 2016.

Masterless Engineers of Turkey: An Institutional Evolution Corroborating Veblen’s Theory of Engineers. In Michael Hudson and Ahmet Öncü (eds), Absentee Ownership and Its Discontents: Critical Essays on the Legacy of Thorstein Veblen, New York: ISLET, 2016.

“Nouveaux Riches of the City of Minarets and Skyscrapers:  Neoliberalism and the Reproduction of the Islamic Middle Class in Istanbul.” Research and Policy on Turkey 1:1: 29-45, 2016. (With E. Balkan).

A Guide to Thorstein Veblen (in Turkish). Istanbul: Habitus, 2015.

“Laic/Islamist Binary Opposition: Modernization of Turkey and Life” (in Turkish). Usatölyesi 13:23:51-71, 2015.

Neoliberalism, The Rise of Islamist Capital and AKP (in Turkish). 2nd edition with a new introduction. Istanbul: Yordam, 2015. (With Neşecan Balkan and Erol Balkan).

“Turkish Capitalist Modernity and the Gezi Revolt.” Journal of Historical Sociology 27:2:151-176, 2014.

“Anger in search of justice: Reflections on the Gezi Revolt in Turkey.” Sociology of Islam 2:178-194, 2014. (With G. Koçan).

Pragmatic Ethics of Environmentalist Movements in Turkey. In Timothy Doyle and Sherilyn MacGregor (eds), Environmental Movements around the World: Shades of Green in Politics and Culture. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger., 2014. (With G. Koçan).

“Environmental Ethics and Environmental Movements in Turkey” (in Turkish). Felsefelogos 49:2:129-150, 2013. (With G. Koçan)