Turkish professor elected president of IPSA

ISTANBUL

İlter Turan, the professor emeritus of Political Science at Istanbul’s Bilgi University, has been elected president of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) for 2016-2018 following the unanimous decision of the IPSA Council on July 26.

Turan was able to attend the 24th World Congress of Political Science organized by the IPSA in Poznan as he was a retired academic, whereas most Turkish academics who had plans to go to Poland for the congress could not as all assignments of academics abroad, as well as their green passports, were canceled after the July 15 failed coup attempt.

The IPSA’s congress, one of the most important meetings in the political science academic community, brought over 2,800 political scientists and scholars from 99 countries to this year’s summit.

This year’s congress was initially scheduled to take place in Istanbul in the last week of July but was canceled in February following a number of deadly terror attacks in Turkey.

After the decision to change the location of the meeting, as Turkish academics were not able to give the security guarantees asked by the council of IPSA, the pro-government media had severely criticized Turkish academics for not convincing their foreign colleagues to go ahead with the congress in Istanbul.

The congress that is now taking place in Poznan would have coincided with the aftermath of the coup in Turkey if it had taken place in Istanbul as originally planned.