Welcome! I am a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Political Science at UC Davis. I got my bachelor degrees in Political Science and History in the Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. My dissertation examines the non-state armed groups (NAGs) including terrorist organizations, guerrilla movements, and ethnic and religious insurgencies. It addresses the conditions under which states and non-state actors form alliances on the basis of two selection models: state selection and NAG selection. While many states resort to supporting NAGs as a foreign policy strategy, many others end up being de facto supporters of such groups due to their inability to resist these groups. My dissertation makes an attempt to distinguish between these two processes and tests hypothesis on their effects on state support of these groups. I received a dissertation improvement grant from the Institute of Governmental Affairs, which helped build a new data set on NAGs, their targets, and supporters in the post-WWII period. An article testing the state selection model has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Strategic Studies and forthcoming in the first half of 2009.