Turkish Law Professor Says Transparency Unaccepted in Politics in Turkey · Global Voices
Danica Radisic

Today's Zaman interviewed İştar Gözaydın, a professor of law and politics at Doğuş University in İstanbul, who has alslo done extensive academic research on Turkish law, society, politics, and is one of the founders of the human rights organization the Helsinki Citizens Association. In the interview, Gözaydın claims, among other things, that Turkish citizens have a lack of trust in the country's judicial system, that social norms and morality are based on personal connections and, hence, biased, but also that transparency is simply not a notion that fits or is accepted in Turkish politics. The experienced Turkish professor said:
It is true that the Turkish people have a sense of a mighty state. This applies to the legal domain as well as matters of political participation. For many years, reference has been made to the weakness of civil society. […] In Turkey, civil society attempts to benefit from the state. There is a political culture that seeks the preservation of advantages rather than creating a structure separate from the state. This is also because of how we understand and define the state. There are two approaches to the problem of state in the literature: The European system referring to state power and public power and the Anglo-American structure in which a contract is made between the state and individuals. Moving away from the “mighty state” approach to the idea that “I pay tax, so the state has to be accountable for its acts” is not an easy process of change. It concerns a variety of different factors, including human psychology, mentality and morality.