DR. EDGAR ŞAR
CO-DIRECTOR, BOARD MEMBER
Edgar Şar is a Co-founder and the current Co-Director of Istanbul Political Research Institute (IstanPol). He received his PhD degree in political science from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, with this dissertation “Contesting Electoral Authoritarianism: Electoral Strategies of the Political Opposition in Turkey and Hungary” in January 2024. His research interests include (de-)democratization, opposition strategies in authoritarian regimes, secularism and state-society-religion relations, and constitutional law.
Dr Şar was previously a CATS Fellow at SWP Berlin, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, and is currently a Research Affiliate at CEU Democracy Institute in Budapest.
Having engaged in a wide array of academic and policy-relevant research, projects, and initiatives, Dr Şar regularly appears as political commentator in Turkish media and writes columns on Turkish and international affairs.