Edgar “Gray” Kinnier Wins the Rutger Lindahl Award for Best Master's Thesis in European Studies

This year's winner of The Rutger Lindahl Award for Best Master’s Thesis in European Studies is Edgar 'Gray' Kinnier. He was awarded thanks to his outstanding thesis, ¨A transnational cleavage across the Bosporus? The Role of Globalizing Forces in Turkish Politics.¨ The annual winner receives 10 000 kronor and the opportunity to have his thesis published in the Centre for European Research (CERGU's) digital Working Paper Series. Congratulations! 

Here is what the awards committee included as their justifications for Kinnier receiving this prize:

In this thesis, the author tests theory on transnational cleavage caused by globalization, which has been tested and developed mainly in a European context, on a new case: Turkey, thus capturing an interesting research interest in the Turkish case, while at the same time the even more interesting underlying critical question: is transnational cleavage theory a European thing – or not?

Two hypotheses are formulated and tested against data from the Global Party Survey Database and the Manifesto Project. As the hypotheses are only partially confirmed, the analysis engages in discussion on the possible reasons for this as well as identifies avenues for further research based on the results.

The thesis addresses a new, highly interesting case to test established theory on. It yields interesting results in that the case partly follows predictions from theory, and partly displays results that are almost diametrically opposed to predictions. This is all well described, and discussed by the author in an extremely well written masters-thesis.

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