Sibel Oktay

About Sibel Oktay

Sibel Oktay is a nonresident senior fellow of public opinion and foreign policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, deputy chair of multilateral diplomacy at the US State Department's National Foreign Affairs Training Center (formerly the Foreign Service Institute), and a faculty fellow at American University's School of International Studies.

Oktay is a foreign policy analyst with regional expertise in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. Her work focuses on the effects of domestic politics and political leadership on foreign policy processes and outcomes. She is the author of Governing Abroad: Coalition Politics and Foreign Policy in Europe, recipient of the Best Book in Foreign Policy Analysis Award from the International Studies Association. Her peer-reviewed articles appear in journals such as International Studies Perspectives, Journal of European Public Policy, European Journal of Political Research, and European Security, among others. Her current research investigates when and how alliance rhetoric shapes policy preferences among the elites and the public, in collaboration with the Council’s Paul Poast, Dina Smeltz, and Craig Kafura.

Oktay's analysis and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, NPR, Voice of America, BBC World, The Hill, The Conversation, Vox, and War On The Rocks, as well as in other news outlets in Brazil, Canada, Greece, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

Oktay received her PhD in political science from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Previously, she was an associate professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Springfield, where she served as the inaugural director of the School of Politics and International Affairs. Oktay was a Jefferson Science Fellow at the State Department and a Public Voices Fellow of the University of Illinois. She served on the foreign policy section boards of the International Studies Association and the American Political Science Association in several capacities, including as conference program organizer and president. She is the incoming co-editor in chief of Foreign Policy Analysis and an editorial board member of International Studies Quarterly.