Professor of Public Law, Atilim University Law School | Ankara, Turkey

Born in Ankara in 1958, Dr. Köker graduated from Ankara University Law School in 1980. He received a master’s degree in political science from Ankara University in 1983. After having completed his doctoral dissertation in 1987, he became an assistant professor of politics in Gazi University where, in 1990, he became an associate professor in political theory. In 1996, he was promoted to full professorship in public law at Gazi University Law School. He spent the 1984-85 academic year in Mansfield College in Oxford, England, and 1994-95 at the Center of International Studies at Princeton University as British Council and Fulbright fellows respectively. In addition to Gazi and Ankara universities, he has taught also in METU, Bilkent and Atilum universities in Ankara, Abant Izzet Baysal University in  Bolu, and the Near East University in Cyprus. He is currently a member of the Faculty of Law in Atilum University.

He has published many books, all in Turkish, including Modernization, Kemalism and Democracy (2009), Two Different Conceptions of Politics (2008), and Democracy, Critique and Turkey (2008).  He has written articles in English for academic journals including  Political Theory, The Annals of the AAPSS  and Constellations. He has been a contributor to Contested Sovereignties, Government and Opposition Middle Eastern and European Perspectives   (edited by Elisabeth Ozdalga and Sune Persson, I.B. Tauris ,London 2010); Islam and Political-Cultural Europe (edited by Cole W. Durham and David Kirkham, Ashgate, London, 2012). 

Professor Köker joined the committee of scholars in 2007 to prepare a draft constitution for Turkey and has been an active participant in many international symposia, including “Emerging Legal Issues Involving Islam in Europe, Part II” at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, 2008; “Fifteenth Annual International Law and Religion Symposium at Brigham Young University ,Provo, Utah, 2008, and “Contested Sovereignties, Constitutional Arrangements and Their Relevance for Democracy: European and Middle Eastern Perspectives’ at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, 2009.