Ozan Varol

Ozan Varol (born December 1, 1981) is a Turkish author and was a tenured law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School.

He is best known for coining the phrase "democratic coup" and authoring the book The Democratic Coup d'État.

Early life and career Varol was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey. He moved to the United States at the age of 17 for his undergraduate studies where he received a bachelor's degree in Planetary Sciences from Cornell University in 2003. Varol later earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Iowa College of Law in 2007. Foreign Policy magazine used Varol's criteria to analyze whether the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état that removed Mohammad Morsi from power was democratic. In addition, he has published over a dozen scholarly articles between the years of 2008 and 2017. Varol has also written about "temporary constitutional provisions" which remain in effect for a limited amount of time.

Varol has defined originalism 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.

Notable publications