[2] After his retirement from the public sector in 2009, Yayla became head of the International Relations department at Faculty of Commercial Sciences of Istanbul Commerce University until he was fired in 2015.

[2] As an undergraduate, he studied economics at Ankara University, going on to earn a master's degree in public administration and a Ph.D in political science (1986).

[9] In 2008 Yayla was one of the signees of the Özür Diliyorum (I Apologize) campaign that caused an enormous reaction in Turkey by the government and the public.

The declaration read as "My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915.

published on 21 September 2022 in the daily paper Türkiye, Yayla stated that while almost all constitutional monarchies were democracies, a significant number of republics were ruled by undemocratic authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, even some like North Korea, Syria, etc.

"[17] Also, as a vocal critic of the one-party regime in Turkey that lasted roughly from the proclamation of the republic in 1923 until the end of the rule of Republican People's Party in 1950, Yayla also questioned if Turkey had better remained a constitutional monarchy in a tweet posted 26 May 2023, saying: "Perhaps constitutional monarchy, and not republic, was a better path for Turkish democracy.

"[18] Yayla is the author of many books and articles in English and Turkish on terrorism, liberalism, constructivist rationalism, social justice, and Friedrich Hayek.