July 2022 - June 2023
Dr. Jens Bastian is a CATS fellow and independent economic analyst. He also serves as Senior Policy Advisor at ELIAMEP (Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy) in Athens, Greece.
His work focuses on China’s expanding infrastructure investment and bank lending footprint in Southeast Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean.
From September 2011 to September 2013 he was appointed by the European Commission as a member of the Task Force for Greece. His previous professional experience includes working as Lead Economist for the European Agency for Reconstruction in Thessaloniki, Greece, at Alpha Bank in Athens, Greece, as well as various academic positions held at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, U.K., Nuffield College, Oxford and the London School of Economics, London, U.K. He received his Ph.D. from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy in April 1993.
June 2022 - March 2023
Edgar Şar is a CATS Fellow at German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) and a PhD candidate in Political Science at Bogazici University. He received his MA degree in Political Science with his thesis “The Relationship Between Secularism and Democracy: The Case of Turkey in the 2000s”.
In his current researches, he focuses on the processes of autocratization and the role of the opposition. His research interests include theories of secularism and democracy and democratization.
Şar is co-founder of the Istanbul-based Think Tank IstanPol.