This panel on “Turkey and Central Eurasia” featured Hannah Lucinda Smith, author of "Erdogan Rising: The Battle for the Soul of Turkey"; Norm Graham & Timur Kocaoglu, co-authors of "Making Russia and Turkey Great Again?: Putin and Erdogan in Search of Lost Empires and Autocratic Power" and was moderated by Emine Evered, from MSU. This was the first in a series of inquiries sponsored by several MSU centers and programs into “The Geopolitics and Economics of Central Eurasia and Its Neighbors.” Future panels will look at China, Russia, Europe and other external actors to explore trans-regional relationships and interactions, as China’s Belt and Road Initiative plays out, Russia seeks to regain dominant influence over former Soviet regions in its “near abroad,” and Turkey seeks to unite the Turkic language speaking world in what some have termed “Neo-Ottomanism.” 

This event was well attended with 50 participants and was sponsored by The IBC, Asian Studies Center and the Center for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies.