One of the oldest debates in politics is this: Does power transform principles, or do principles limit power?
Niccolò Machiavelli described the distance between politics and morality in a realist way. According to him, power is often sustained not by virtue but by force. But modern democratic politics has developed a principle that limits this approach: legitimacy.
At this point Max Weber speaks of two different understandings of ethics: “ethics of belief” and “ethics of responsibility.” The politician often has to bear responsibility for the results while at the same time protecting the values he or she stands for. When this balance is lost, politics is reduced to the mere management of power.
Hannah Arendt sees the essence of politics in public debate and plurality. For her, politics is meaningful as long as it is a space where different ideas can be freely expressed.
The debates taking place in Turkey today are reminiscent of the tensions that these three thinkers put forward. The fact that a political movement that has long advocated democratization, free debate and intra-party pluralism has become more closed to criticism over time creates a serious intellectual problem.
This is not only a matter of strategy. Because politics is not only about producing results, but also about producing legitimacy.
The legitimacy of a political movement is undermined when it starts to use the methods it opposes. At this point, politics ceases to be the public sphere Arendt describes and turns into the power struggle Weber warns against.
Therefore, what needs to be discussed today is not only political tactics, but whether the moral ground of politics is preserved or not.
Because politics ultimately confronts the question: Can everything be done for power, or should some things never be done?