Author profile

Baris Cayli Messina

Baris Cayli Messina is Associate Professor at the University of Lincoln, Editor-in-Chief of the International Social Science Journal (UNESCO/Wiley), and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. His books include A Slow Revolution (Cornell University Press, 2026) and The Moral Trap (University of California Press, 2027).

Illustration of teenagers in teal hoodies facing a riot officer with a yellow shield outside boarded-up buildings.

France’s Student Revolt Exposes a State That Cannot Provide but Can Police

Baris Cayli Messina

Over 5,000 arrests in three weeks reveal a republic quicker to discipline teenagers than to teach them.

Person standing amidst tangled pink lines representing political disorientation.

Disorientation Is the Point: How Permanent Unpredictability Broke Democratic Politics

Baris Cayli Messina

Chronic uncertainty does not mobilise democratic publics — it paralyses them, and that paralysis is itself a tool of power.