Mert Akdoğan is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science & Public Administration at İzmir Katip Çelebi University and a research assistant in the Department of Sustainable Energy at İzmir University of Economics. He completed his undergraduate studies in International Relations at Ege University and his master’s degree in International Relations at Dokuz Eylül University. In his master’s thesis, he analyzed the impact of the 2008 Global Economic Crisis on the rise of populism in Hungary. Since 2022, he has continued his PhD studies, focusing on a comparative analysis of energy policies across different political regimes.