Ilayda B. Onder

Ilayda B. Onder is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Bush School of Government & Public Service at Texas A&M University. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from The Pennsylvania State University in May 2024. Previously, she was a Minerva Peace and Security Scholar Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).

She studies political violence and civil conflict processes with a particular focus on the intersection of violent political behavior and the socio-organizational aspects of rebellion. She investigates the ways in which rebel organizations’ interactions—both violent and non-violent—with their allies, rivals, civilian populations, and the broader domestic and international public shape patterns of civilian victimization, recruitment into rebellion, and the internal dynamics of rebel groups. She uses a variety of quantitative methods, including network analysis, text-as-data, time-series analysis, quasi-experiments, and survey experiments.

Her work has been published in Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Conflict Resolution, International Interactions, and Terrorism and Political Violence.