Ali Kaya is a Ph.D. researcher at the Graduate School of Global and Area Studies (GSGAS) at Leipzig University, Germany, and a Turkish development expert at TİKA, with experience in various projects across sub-Saharan Africa.
His research explores normative power roles in global studies, with particular focus on the diverse normative practices in sub-Saharan Africa. His doctoral dissertation, submitted to Leipzig University, is titled “The Quest for a Normative Power Role: Turkish Foreign Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa (1998–2022).” He has also conducted analyses of the European Union’s normative power.
Kaya’s work focuses on Türkiye’s relations with Africa and the EU, the concept of normative powers, multiple normativities, external actors in Africa, Turkish foreign policy, and the intersection of human rights and development policies.