Professor Büşra Ersanlı

Professor Büşra Ersanlı

Joint Forum ‘Kurdish Issue in Turkey and Problems of Democratic Participation’

Professor Büşra Ersanlı has been working at the Department of Political Science and International Relations of Marmara University, Istanbul since 1990. She obtained her BA degree in 1978 at the Department of English Language and Literature of Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. She completed her MA and PhD at the Department of Political Science of the same university respectively in 1981 and 1989. Her PhD thesis titled “A Cultural Dimension of the Kemalist Revolution: The Turkish History Thesis” was written under the guidance of acclaimed political historian Prof. Şerif Mardin. In 2009, Prof. Ersanlı was elected to the Party Assembly of the BDP (Peace and Democracy Party). She has been included in the commission that was established within the BDP for writing a new constitution under the roof of the Turkish Grand National Assembly. Contributing to the preparation and consensus-building talks held with the representatives of other political parties, Prof. Ersanlı has continued to reflect her experience as a political scientist and activist in the constitutional process. In October 2011, Ersanlı was arrested alongside publisher Ragip Zarakolu as part of the KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) trials. She was accused of ‘leading an illegal organisation’. Ersanli was released pending trial in July 2012.