Professor Metin Heper was born on 1 January 1940 in İstanbul. After having completed his secondary education at Harlow College, Essex, U.K. and Ankara Koleji, he graduated from the Law School of İstanbul University (1963). Professor Heper obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at Syracuse University, NY, USA in 1968 and 1971, respectively.

Professor Heper had been Lester Martin Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor at the University of Connecticut, Simon Senior Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, England, Madeleine Haas Russell Visiting Professor of Non-Western and Comparative Politics at Brandeis University, Research Fellow at Harvard University, and Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor at Princeton University. He is editor or co-editor of Islam and Politics in the Modern Middle East, The State, the Military, and Democracy in Turkey, Political Parties and Democracy in Turkey, Turkey and the West: Changing Political and Cultural Identities, Politics in the Third Turkish Republic, Local Government in Turkey, The State and Public Bureaucracies: A Comparative Perspective, Strong State and Economic Interest Groups: The Post-1980 Turkish Experience, Institutions and Democratic Statecraft, Political Leaders and Democracy in Turkey, and Political Parties in Turkey, and author of The State Tradition in Turkey, Historical, Dictionary of Turkey (first, second, and third editions), İsmet İnönü: The Making of Turkish Statesman, and The State and Kurds: The Question of Assimilation.

Professor Heper has acted as Chairperson of the Department of Political Science, Director of Center of Turkish Politics and History, and Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Administrative, and Social Sciences at Bilkent University, Ankara. He is also founding and honorary member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences, and Board Member of the Scientific and Technological Research Institute of Turkey (TÜBİTAK).

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