Gökhan is a Turkish legal scholar and researcher specializing in comparative constitutional law, international law, and democratic theory. He currently works as a researcher within the Department of Public and International Law at the University of Oslo. He holds a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Zurich and has previously taught constitutional law at Anadolu University in Turkey before shifting his career to European academic institutions.
His core research investigates the institutional and procedural mechanisms of direct democracy, with a particular emphasis on the legal design of sovereignty and decolonization referendums. Rather than treating referendums purely as political events, his scholarship analyzes the structural friction between international self-determination norms and domestic constitutional frameworks. This inquiry forms the basis of his foundational monograph, Sovereignty Referendums in International and Constitutional Law (Springer, 2015). His recent comparative studies look at voting criteria and structural challenges across United States and French overseas territories.
Beyond direct democracy, he tracks populist de-constitutionalization and democratic backsliding, focusing heavily on Turkey. His socio-legal analyses document how ruling executives manipulate judicial appointments and legal technicalities to systematically hollow out institutional checks and balances. This research has been developed through fellowships at the Centre on Law and Social Transformation (LawTransform) in Bergen, the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), and Humboldt University of Berlin.