BARIS CAYLI MESSINA
I am a comparative-historical sociologist and social and political theorist studying power, political violence, authoritarianism, repression, and collective resistance. My research asks a central question: how do political and social orders sustain themselves, and how are they challenged and transformed? I examine the mechanisms through which state and non-state actors establish and enforce authority, including violence, moralisation, criminalisation, and marginalisation. I also study how communities resist, negotiate, and reshape these forms of power in different social and political geographies, from historical settings to the contemporary world.
I am Associate Professor at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lincoln. I am the author of four research monographs, published or forthcoming with McGill-Queen's University Press, Cornell University Press, the University of California Press, and Temple University Press. My research projects have been funded by prestigious organisations and in 2026, I received the Sakip Sabanci International Research Award.
My editorial leadership roles include Book Series Editor for Temple Studies in Criminalization, History, and Society, published by Temple University Press, Editor-in-Chief of the International Social Science Journal (Wiley/UNESCO), Editor of Sociology Compass for original article submissions.
I am very happily married to Gioacchino Messina.
Across continents, societies have perfected a system for destroying queer lives. Queer Under Siege is the first book to map this as a unified global process of repression, tracing its transformations from the 1950s to the present through archives, court records, suicide letters, and activist testimony. As the assault on queer existence intensifies worldwide, this book bears witness to both the cruelty of repressive social orders and the rebellions that refuse to surrender across Europe, the United States, Asia and Africa.
A sharp, global narrative revealing how autocrats weaponize morality and strategically splinter communities to consolidate power. Drawing on archival research and social and political historical analysis, the book moves from Nazi Germany and Maoist China to East Germany and apartheid South Africa, and from contemporary Turkey and Poland to the United States, Iran, Israel, Russia, and beyond.
A sweeping account of Sicily's generations-long struggle against the mafia and a rare exploration of why some revolutions span centuries. Based on extensive longitudinal ethnographic and archival research, the book brings a new lens to the modern and contemporary history of Sicily and Italy, revealing the human cost of that relentless fight.
The first comprehensive comparative study of militant violence, tracing its evolution from Ottoman rebellions to contemporary jihadist organizations across Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Europe. Built on extensive archival research spanning centuries and borders, the book reveals how the dynamics of armed militancy persist, adapt, and resurface across vastly different political landscapes.
I wrote for Social Europe regarding how chronic uncertainty paralyses democratic publics and becomes a tool of power.
