Law constitutes the foundation of the legitimacy of states. Preventing arbitrariness is the most essential constant in the equation between law and the state. In this context, two fundamental requirements emerge: (1) limiting the power of authority, and (2) overseeing and controlling that power. The former relates to the design of the state itself, while the latter concerns the balancing of the executive by other powers or institutions.
Authoritarian regimes overturn this theory of the state and construct their own models. Despite their ideological differences, they converge on one point: oppression.
The mindset that reduces law to the will of the sovereign—seeing it as a mere instrument of politics—also creates the antithesis of the rule of law. Whether in the practices of Nazism or fascism, in class dictatorships that instrumentalize the ideal of absolute equality, in Islam-infused theo-fascism, or in white supremacist apartheid regimes like that of South Africa (and many more examples could be added), all share a common trait: turning law into an extension of politics. In such regimes, law becomes a mere decoration. When political authorities or the executive are exempt from judicial oversight, they become absolute powers—and nothing good ever comes from that.
The intellectual foundations of the rule of law date back thousands of years. This is a 2,500-year-long journey. Aristotle, in Politics, argued that it should not be men but laws that govern. When the rule of a single leader encompasses the law, it renders laws arbitrary. The emergence of absolute monarchies as early forms of despotism and the evolution of the rule of law as a mechanism to restrain and subject power to legal limits stem from this reality.
This also explains why the issue carries a universal character. Across societies and historical periods, it is a consistent reality that absolute power undermines human freedoms. Wherever you go, in whatever era you examine, you will observe—almost like a mathematical certainty—that in authoritarian regimes where law becomes an extension of politics, suffering, repression, and oppression inevitably follow. Periods of the so-called “good ruler” are exceptions; they never represent the norm.
John Locke teaches us that natural rights are inalienable. Fundamental human rights such as life, liberty, and property cannot be restricted by political authority under any circumstances. Authoritarian regimes, however, argue the exact opposite. By constructing a securitized political sphere, they eliminate undesired elements through a fabricated legal system they control.
In such regimes, constitutions are mere pieces of paper—existing only to be violated. Having captured the judiciary, these systems reject the essential elements of constitutional order such as limited government and the rule of law. Opposition is crushed the moment it gains traction, often labeled as “terrorist.” While Locke would argue that such a state has lost its legitimacy, many contemporary political scientists’ minimalist definitions of democracy also fail here. Elections and partial freedoms cannot prevent the erosion of legitimacy in semi-democratic systems.
Even Rousseau argued that freedom must exist within the framework of laws. When power detaches itself from the law, it transforms into a coercive mechanism working against freedom. The fact that this also applies to republics is something many Turkish intellectuals have overlooked, largely for ideological reasons. Turkey, built upon despotic republican foundations and hindered by a culture of one-man rule, has long remained vulnerable to anti-freedom tendencies. Locke’s principle of inalienable natural rights is entirely foreign to Turkey’s political culture.
Montesquieu, in The Spirit of the Laws, emphasized the separation of powers, theorizing that systems in which the executive is not balanced by the legislature and judiciary will inevitably slide into tyranny. In regimes where all power is concentrated in one hand—where the leader effectively becomes both the beginning and the end of the judicial process—there can be no legitimacy. Rejecting such a system entirely and engaging in civil disobedience becomes legitimate. Expecting salvation through democratic majority rule in such a system is futile; it is nothing but falling into the trap of deception.
Max Weber defined the state as a monopoly on legitimate violence, linking its legitimacy to rational and bureaucratic principles. In authoritarian regimes, where such principles are absent, arbitrariness prevails, and oppression—camouflaged behind ideological justifications—becomes the norm rather than the exception.
From Ancient Greece to the present, the philosophical and theoretical legacy decisively refutes authoritarian regimes that disregard democracy and human rights. Empirical evidence also demonstrates, through countless examples, that such regimes inevitably produce repression and suffering in practice.
Without the rule of law, it is impossible to limit power. Therefore, the rule of law is an unavoidable universal norm—there is no alternative. Within the constitutional architecture of the state, power cannot be absolute. It must be subject to law and open to oversight. The foundations of law, in turn, must rest upon human rights.
The protection of the individual is the central problem of state theory. This means that individuals must be protected from the state itself. The only way to achieve this is through the rule of law, the legitimate manifestation of the state.
Turkey is not a state governed by the rule of law.
Now, please connect the dots yourself.
