Ahmet Kuru, Ph.D.

Ahmet T. Kuru is a professor of Political Science and the director of Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies and at San Diego State University. He is the author of Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and the co-editor (with Alfred Stepan) of Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey (Columbia University Press, 2012). Kuru’s recent book, Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison (Cambridge University Press, 2019) won the American Political Science Association's International History and Politics Section Award, received honorable mention of SSSR’s Award, and was included in Times Literary Supplement’s Books of the Year. It has been translated into Indonesian, Arabic, Persian, Bosnian, Dutch, Bengali, Malay, and Kyrgyz.