Prof. Metin Heper

“The Kurdish Initiative: Some Thoughts on Contentious Issues”

Political Science (Chair); Dean of Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences ;
Center of Turkish Politics and History (Director)

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

POSTER of “The Kurdish Initiative: Some Thoughts on Contentious Issues”

Prof. Metin Heper is the Chair of the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University and is the Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences. He received his B.A. from İstanbul University in 1971, M.P.A. from Syracuse University in 1968, and Ph.D. in Public Administration from Syracuse in 1971.

Prof. Heper was Associate President at Middle East Technical University in 1972-73, Associate Chair and Chair of the Department of Public Administration at Boğaziçi University in 1982-88, Associate Dean of Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Boğaziçi University in 1983-85, member of the Senate at Boğaziçi University in 1983-85, and member of the Executive Committee of the American Research Institute in 1984-88. He joined Bilkent in 1988 as founding chair of the Department of Political Science. He also served as dean at Koç University in the College of Administrative Sciences and Economics in July 1998- January 1999. He is a member of Bilkent University Executive Committee and director of Center of Turkish Politics and History at Bilkent University. Since 1988, he has been a member of the Turkish Democracy Foundation. He is a member of the Executive Council of the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBİTAK) in 1994-1995 and since 1994. Since 2000, Prof. Heper has acted as a member of the Executive Committee of the Turkish Academy of Sciences, of the Council of Higher Education, and of the Scientific and Technological Research Institute of Turkey. Between 2002-2003, he served as a Director of Center for the Study of Atatürk and Republican Turkey at Bilkent University. He is a member of Executive Council of the Turkish Foreign Institute.

Prior to his current position at Bilkent, he was a Research Fellow at Harvard University, Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor at the University of Connecticut, Lester Martin Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Simon Senior Research at the University of Manchester, Madeleine Haas Russel Visiting Professor of Non-Western and Comparative Politics at Brandeis University, and Research Fellow and Visiting Professor at Princeton University.

Dr. Heper has published numerous articles in leading international journals, and is the author and editor of many books, including Islam and Politics in the Modern Middle East, the Historical Dictionary of Turkey, and İsmet İnönü: The Making of a Turkish Statesman, as well as most recently The State and Kurds: The Question of Assimilation. He is currently co-editing a book entitled A Handbook of Modern Turkey to be published by Routledge. In addition to his professional and academic interests, Prof. Heper is an avid tennis player and he also regularly participates in bridge tournaments with his wife.