Home
Mahir Yazar's picture

Mahir Yazar

Postdoctoral Fellow
  • E-mailmahir.yazar@uib.no
  • Visitor Address
    Fosswinckels gate 6
    Lauritz Meltzers hus
    5007 Bergen
  • Postal Address
    Postboks 7802
    5020 Bergen

I am an environmental social scientist and a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Geography & CET. My scholarship consistently engages diverse themes relevant to the urban politics and governance of sustainability transition and climate change, including gentrification, energy transition, urban green commons, water insecurity, justice in recognition and procedure through multi-scale considerations (e.g., at the household, neighborhood, city, nation-state, and international levels).

My research, through a postdoctoral fellowship at CET is broadened to diversification in oil and gas-dependent regions of Europe and the politics in energy transitions in those regions. Specifically, I am managing a subsection in Horizon2020 CINTRAN (Carbon Intensive Regions in Transition) project and delivering data collection in various contexts. I focus on how populist right-wing parties in Estonia, Germany, and Poland generate discursive tactics to delay regional decarbonization in their respective oil and gas-dependent regions.  I am also an affiliated scientist in the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-term Ecological Research (CAP-LTER) program and NSF-funded ARC-NAV: Arctic Robust Communities Navigating Adaptation to Variability at Arizona State University (ASU).

I hold a Ph.D. in Environmental Social Science from Arizona State University, and M.A. in International Studies, Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Geographies of the Green Economy | University of Bergen (uib.no)

This is an interdisciplinary course on theory and research that fits under the broad umbrella of the green economy.  Different methods, foci of interest, as well as epistemologies now are common in green economy research. Grounded on active student participation, this research-based course discusses how the concept of the green economy affects societal and economic activities at different scales. 

The majority of classes will consist of discussions around assigned readings.  While this is not a methods class, students and professors will discuss methodologies appropriate to green economy research.  Our goal is for the range of topics and our discussions throughout the semester to help you identify the kinds of research questions, methods, and analytic strategies pursued by a variety of interdisciplinary scholars which might be useful in your own work.

Academic article
  • Show author(s) (2022). Urban climate resilience and water insecurity: future scenarios of water supply and demand in Istanbul. Urban Water Journal.
  • Show author(s) (2022). Right-wing and populist support for climate mitigation policies: Evidence from Poland and its carbon-intensive Silesia region. Regional Sustainability. 281-293.
  • Show author(s) (2022). Norm domestication challenges for local climate actions: A lesson from Arizona, USA. Environmental Policy and Governance.
  • Show author(s) (2022). Governance learning from collective actions for just climate adaptation in cities. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities.
  • Show author(s) (2022). Disentangling justice as recognition through public support for local climate adaptation policies: Insights from the Southwest US. Urban Climate.
  • Show author(s) (2022). Adaptation, exposure, and politics: Local extreme heat and global climate change risk perceptions in the phoenix metropolitan region, USA. Cities: The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning. 1-10.
Academic literature review
  • Show author(s) (2022). Leveraging shadow networks for procedural justice. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability.
Chapter
  • Show author(s) (2023). Environmental injustices unfold in urban sustainability projects in Istanbul. . In:
    • Show author(s) (2023). Haste: The slow politics of climate urgency. UCL Press.

More information in national current research information system (CRIStin)

13. Yazar, M., Hermwille, L., & Haarstad, H. (2022). Right-wing and populist support for climate mitigation policies: Evidence from Poland and its carbon-intensive Silesia region. Regional Sustainability, 3(4), 281-293. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsus.2022.11.001 

12. Yazar, M. (2022). Norm domestication challenges for local climate actions: A lesson from Arizona, USA. Environmental Policy and Governance. https://10.1002/eet.2038

11. Yazar, M., Haarstad, H., Drengenes, LL., York, A. (2022). Governance learning from collective actions for just climate adaptation in cities. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2022.932070

10. York, A., & Yazar, M. (2022). Leveraging Shadow Networks for Procedural Justice. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2022.101190 

9. Yazar, M., York, A., Larson, L.K. (2022). Adaptation, exposure, and politics. Local extreme heat and global climate change risk perceptions in the Phoenix Metropolita Region, USA. CITIES, 103763.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2022.103763

8. Daloglu-Cetinkaya, I., Yazar, M., Kilinc, S. & Guven, B. (2022). Urban climate resilience and water insecurity: future scenarios of water supply and demand in Istanbul. Urban Water Journal, 10.1080/1573062X.2022.2066548

7. Yazar, M., York, A.M. (2022). Disentangling justice as recognition through public support for local climate adaptation policies: Insights from the Southwest US. Urban Climate, Volume 41, 101079, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2021.101079

6. Yazar, M., York, A.M. (2021). Urban Climate Governance under the Central Government Shadow: Evidence from Istanbul. Journal of Urban Affairs. 1-17 https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2021.1915151 

5. Yazar, M., York, A.M., Kyriakopoulos, G. (2021). Heat Exposure and the Climate Change Beliefs in a Desert City: The case of Phoenix Metropolitan Area. Urban Climate 36:100769. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2020.100769 

4. Yazar, M., Hestad, D., Mangalagiu, D., Thornton, T., Ma, Y., Saysel, A. (2020). Enabling Environment for Regime Destabilization toward Urban Transition in Megacities: Comparing Shanghai and Istanbul. Climatic Change 160(4): 727-752. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-020-02726-1

3. Yazar, M., Hestad, D., Mangalagiu, D., Saysel, A., Ma, Y., Thornton, T. (2019). Urban Transformation towards Sustainability or Planned Green Gentrification? Insight from urban renewal processes in Gaziosmanpasa, Istanbul. Climatic Change 160(4): 637-653. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02509-3

2. Thornton, T., Mangalagiu, D., Ma, Y., Lan, J., Yazar, M., Saysel, A., Chaar, AM. (2019). Cultural models of and for urban sustainability: Assessing beliefs about Green-Win. Climatic Change 160(4): 521-537. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02518-23

1. Kuokkanen, A. and Yazar, M. (2018). Cities in sustainability transitions: Comparing Helsinki and Istanbul. Sustainability 10(5):1421. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10051421

I am currently working within two major projects:

Project 1: " Horizon2020 CINTRAN - Carbon Intensive Regions in Transition - Unravelling the Challenges of Structural Change." (Post-Doc), working on the politics of decarbonization, including quantitative assessments of voting patterns and policy narratives to explore the rise of populism and anti-democratic attitudes in the selected carbon-intensive regions of Estonia, Germany, Greece, and Poland.

CINTRAN | Coal Transitions

Project 2: " LOCALNET - Local Climate Change Narratives and Networks in Turkey" (Co-PI) funded by Stiftung Wissenscharft und Politik (500,000.00 NOK) starting in February 2022. 

LOCALNET | Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (CET) | UiB

Research groups

Twitter