ABSTRACT
Corruption and government are two interrelated concepts, which are part of the human history almost dating back to the origins of the statehood. Both concepts intercept at the juncture of the power and authority. The institution of government was established as part of the need for security and maintenance of order in a society, however, the behavior of corruption is a learned one that emerged as the result of power poisoning. Corruption in government is mostly a product of the existing societal, political, and economical diseases in a society. The main problem of corruption is the mindset of people, most likely as the result of human inhibition on choosing the path of the least resistance on a daily basis in the face of getting things done. Corruption is usually only a matter of smoothing one’s path. Thus, “in the political field, the traditional concept of corruption was strictly related to the morality of societies, rather than to actions of individuals” (Terracino, 2012, p. 8). When it comes to government, however, corruption appears in the form of a side effect of the political power. Corruption is mostly the first signal of power poisoning and collapse of moral authority. The famous quote of “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men” By an English historian, politician, and writer Lord Acton, should be great reminder of this situation. Therefore, in this context, corruption results when politics use the state structure as a mean to gain wealth and
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 221 History of Government Corruption and Scandals in Turkey ....................... 223 The Mother of All Corruption Scandals .......................................................... 226 AKP’s Brand is “Perception”.............................................................................. 227 Turkey Toward the Authoritarian State ........................................................... 230 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 232 References ............................................................................................................ 233
absolute power, which later finds itself in denial of the legal principle of no one is above the law. Understandably, “political parties need money to run their electoral machines and keep their militants deployed wherever needed” (Taheri, 2008). Furthermore, more scarier than the former, sometimes society view the commission of violence by any government either as a reflection of, or necessary auxiliary tool for an effective state authority. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s leadership style fits the textbook profile of this assertion. It has been seen throughout history that some politicians have a superlative piece of skill that is very subtle (Freedman, 2013). According to Human Rights Watch report (2016), “Turkey jailed journalists and closed media groups that showed themselves willing to scrutinize government policy and corruption, or report evidence of arms transfers to Syrian opposition groups” (p. 17).
