Ozan Varol (born December 1, 1981) is an author and tenured
law professor
A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...
at
Lewis & Clark Law School
The Northwestern School of Law of Lewis and Clark College (also known as Lewis & Clark Law School), is an American Bar Association-approved private law school in Portland, Oregon.
The law school received ABA approval in 1970 and joined the Asso ...
.
He is best known for coining the phrase "democratic coup" and authoring the book ''The Democratic Coup d'État.
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Early life and career
Varol was born and raised in
Istanbul
Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...
,
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
. He moved to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
at the age of 17 for his
undergraduate studies
Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-lev ...
where he received a bachelor's degree in
Planetary Sciences
Planetary science (or more rarely, planetology) is the scientific study of planets (including Earth), celestial bodies (such as moons, asteroids, comets) and planetary systems (in particular those of the Solar System) and the processes of their ...
from
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
in 2003. During his time at Cornell, he served as a member of the operations team for
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
's 2003
Mars Exploration Rover
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission was a robotic space mission involving two Mars rovers, ''Spirit (rover), Spirit'' and ''Opportunity (rover), Opportunity'', exploring the planet Mars. It began in 2003 with the launch of the two rover ...
project; which sent two rovers to examine the Martian surface. Varol later earned a law degree from the
University of Iowa College of Law
The University of Iowa College of Law is the law school of the University of Iowa, located in Iowa City, Iowa. It was founded in 1865. Iowa is ranked the 28th-best law school in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or U ...
in 2007.
Varol currently teaches as an associate professor at the
Lewis & Clark Law School
The Northwestern School of Law of Lewis and Clark College (also known as Lewis & Clark Law School), is an American Bar Association-approved private law school in Portland, Oregon.
The law school received ABA approval in 1970 and joined the Asso ...
in
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
, focusing on the areas of
constitutional law
Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a State (polity), state, namely, the executive (government), executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as th ...
,
criminal law
Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law i ...
, and comparative constitutional law. He is best known for his book ''The Democratic Coup d'État'', published in 2017, which expands on his article of the same name, published in the Harvard International Law Journal in 2012. Both works explore the idea that a
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
can sometimes be established by a
military coup
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such ...
. ''Foreign Policy'' magazine used Varol's criteria to analyze whether the
2013 Egyptian coup d'état
The 2013 Egyptian coup d'etat took place on 3 July 2013. Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi led a coalition to remove the democratically elected
President of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, from power and suspended the Egyptian constitut ...
that removed
Mohammad Morsi
Mohamed Mohamed Morsi Eissa al-AyyatThe spellings of his first and last names vary. survey of 14 news organizations plus Wikipedia in July 2012 He also writes weekly in hi blog about critical thinking and non-conformity.
He has written about "constitutional stickiness" which Yaniv Roznai describes as follows: "even arbitrary or anachronistic existing constitutional provisions often stick during the remaking of constitutions, due to behavioral mechanisms and biases that entrench the constitutional status quo". Varol has also written about "temporary constitutional provisions" which remain in effect for a limited amount of time.
Varol has defined
originalism
In the context of United States law, originalism is a theory of constitutional interpretation that asserts that all statements in the Constitution must be interpreted based on the original understanding "at the time it was adopted". This conce ...
broadly as the reliance on history for constitutional interpretation. This is limited not only to "legislating from the bench" but also to any interpretation of the constitution that may be informed by the views of historical figures.