Ali Altiok
Ph.D. Candidate, Peace Studies and Political Science · University of Notre Dame
I study what makes young people trust or distrust their governments.
I am a Ph.D. candidate in Peace Studies and Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. My research focuses on youth political behavior in Kenya and Türkiye, specifically examining what drives young people's trust or distrust in government, how they interact with government-sponsored programs, and how they act politically on social media.
The Pragmatic Logic of Youth Political Trust
Young people are commonly flattened into reductive binaries, viewed either as threats to democratic stability due to their disengagement from conventional politics, or romanticized as drivers of democratic renewal through direct action against corruption and authoritarianism. Both portrayals rest on the assumption that youth harbor deep cynicism toward public institutions. My dissertation challenges this perspective by systematically analyzing what young Kenyans mean when they express trust or distrust in their government and elected representatives. Uncovering a pragmatic political logic, I show that young people extend trust on material grounds, calibrating their support not as a simple transaction, but as an evaluation of what they judge elected representatives are realistically capable of delivering in their context. The dissertation examines how Kenyan youth encounter the state in ICT hubs, evaluate government programs and navigate governmental politics online, and incorporates Türkiye as a shadow case to compare how youth evaluate flagship state-sponsored digitalization initiatives. Across these contexts, youth political trust emerges as a grounded assessment of what is possible rather than a generic generational demand for democracy.
Grounded in three rounds of original fieldwork in Kenya (2024 to 2026) across Western, Coastal, and Central regions, my methodology pairs broad empirical scale with contextual depth. Working with local digital skills trainers, who opened access to remote rural vocational ICT hubs, I administered an original survey (N=1,072) that gathered rich qualitative responses through audio prompts. To examine digital youth political behavior, I conducted an in-person smartphone field experiment (N=320) uncovering how youth tactically engage with political deepfakes, pairing behavioral social media data and discernment judgments with 48 focus group discussions. For a cross-case comparison on government-sponsored initiatives, I extend the project with qualitative interviews in Türkiye, examining youth participation in the government's flagship program, Teknofest.
Working Papers
Beyond Trust Scores: How Kenyan Youth Interpret and Evaluate Government
State Digitalization in Kenya: How Youth View Government-Sponsored ICT Hubs
Laughing at Lies, Liking the Lie: Behavioral Signals of Deepfake Detection Among Kenyan Youth
Selected Publications
Altiok, A. and Ilhanli, M. “Subverting the ‘Adult Gaze’ in the Kurdish–Turkish Conflict: The Case of ‘Kuro’.” International Political Sociology, 2026. Collective discussion.
Parrin, A., Simpson, G., Altiok, A. and Wamai, N. “Youth and Transitional Justice.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 16, no. 1 (2022): 1–18. Editorial introducing the special issue, which I co-edited.
Under review and in progress
Altiok, A., Villalaz, M. D. R. and Hughes, C. “The World Bank, the Liberal Peace and the Suppression of Justice.” Under review.
Altiok, A. “How Do Youth Impact Peacemaking? Youth Inclusion in Yemen’s 2011–2014 Political Transition.” Working paper.
Book chapters
Altiok, A. “What Makes Youth Participation Meaningful? The Pitfalls of Merging Counter-Terrorism with the Youth, Peace and Security Agenda.” In H. Berents, C. Bolten and S. McEvoy-Levy (eds.), Building Sustainable Peace with and for Young People. Manchester University Press, 2024.
Altiok, A. “Barış Süreçlerinde Gençlerin Rolleri: 2011–2014 Yemen Devrimi ve Ulusal Diyalog Konferansı” [Youth Roles in Peace Processes: The 2011–2014 Yemeni Revolution and National Dialogue Conference]. In E. Dilek and C. Dizdaroğlu (eds.), Eleştirel Barış Çalışmaları: Kavramlar, Aktörler ve Pratikler [Critical Peace Studies: Concepts, Actors and Practices]. Imge, 2024.
Altiok, A. “Squeezed Agency: Youth Resistance to the Securitization of Peacebuilding.” In M. O. Ensor (ed.), Securitizing Youth: Young People’s Role in the Global Peace and Security Agenda. Rutgers University Press, 2021.
Altiok, A., Berents, H., Grizelj, I. and McEvoy-Levy, S. “Youth, Peace and Security.” In F. Hampson, J. Kent and A. Özerdem (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Peace, Security and Development. Routledge, 2020.
Teaching
I am prepared to teach courses in comparative politics and political behavior, peace and conflict studies, African politics, international organizations, and research methods, including field methods, survey design, youth participatory research, and experimental design in low-resource settings.
At the University of Notre Dame, I have served as a teaching assistant for courses in Middle East Politics and Introduction to Peace Studies. I am also regularly invited to guest lecture on youth politics at universities in the United States and Europe. For over ten years, I have mentored young people from the Global South through collaborative research that treats youth as active partners.
Teaching statement and sample syllabi available on request.
Selected policy reports
My scholarship maintains a direct connection to policy and practice. I have written policy research for the United Nations, the United States Institute of Peace, Saferworld, and Interpeace, particularly on the UN Security Council's Youth, Peace and Security Agenda and UN multilateral counter-terrorism frameworks.
Altiok, A. and Street, J. The Voice of the Fourth Pillar: How Security Council Discourse Drove Counter-Terrorism Expansion at the UN. Saferworld, 2025.
Altiok, A., Porras, P. and Lee, P. Fostering Youth Participation in International Peacebuilding. United States Institute of Peace, 2023.
Altiok, A. and Street, J. A Fourth Pillar of the United Nations? The Rise of Counter-Terrorism. Saferworld, 2020.
Altiok, A. and Grizelj, I. We Are Here: An Integrated Approach to Youth Inclusive Peace Processes. UN Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, 2019.
Curriculum vitae (PDF) aaltiok@nd.edu Google Scholar ORCID
Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
University of Notre Dame · Notre Dame, IN 46556