AN EVALUATION ON POLITICAL OVERSIGHT ON BUREAUCRACY in TURKISH PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Bureaucracy, as a system of rules and regulations is indeed the mechanism that primarily leads decisions although it is not directly involved in political decision-making. It has, in a way, the power of manipulating the course of events in a country with all available means and resources. This power is what the politicians also aspire. Since they have strong belief in the fact that they would strengthen their positions and sustain their presence as long as have access to this power, they intend to intervene and manipulate bureaucracy. This phenomenon, namely politicization, is a type of political corruption in terms of its way of implementation and is also present in the Turkish public administration. At this point, it would be to underestimate the problem just to say, “The politicians should not interfere with bureaucracy”. This attitude would also not corroborate with the facts of the country. So, what needs to be done essentially is to modify politicization in a way that would not be considered as corruption. In other words, politicization should undergo some kind of transmutation or transformation. This would be both more practical and more rational. Therefore, it is fundamentally more realistic to discuss how this approach can be legitimized by respecting political ethics.