Biography

Aydin Yildirim is a political scientist specialising in International Political Economy (IPE) and the politics of international trade. He conducts interdisciplinary research combining insights from political science, economics, and international law. After completing his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science at the University of Houston in the US, he completed a Research Master’s degree in Politics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and obtained his PhD from the University of Antwerp in Belgium.
Aydin’s dissertation focused on the politics of dispute settlement at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and analyzed factors that affect WTO members’ compliance with their international trade commitments. His work has been published by the Review of International Organizations, World Trade Review, and Comparative European Politics.
He currently continues his research by looking at the role of multinational firms and their impact on trade policy. In doing so, he hopes to examine the conditions under which firms are able to politically mobilise and press for their trade policy preferences, both domestically and internationally. He is specifically interested in the growing internationalisation of production and firm-level micro data.
Aydin is also a Guest Lecturer at the University of Antwerp’s Faculty of Political Sciences where he teaches International Political Economy (IPE) for the Master’s in Diplomacy and Political Science degrees.