The king is open to criticism, but does the same hold true for the royalists? The fund crisis in Türkiye went beyond the victimization of hundreds of thousands of investors to bring a debate on political ethics to the agenda, and as some government supporters reacted against journalists who criticized the crisis, it laid bare the relationship between belonging and moral judgment. The debate extended to political ethics.
Speaking at the AK Party group meeting on October 21, President Erdoğan said, “We have a base that asks, questions, and criticizes,” and stated, with reference to the principle of emr-i bi’l-ma’rûf and nehy-i ani’l-münker — meaning enjoining good and forbidding evil — that they attach importance to the criticisms. The framework of the message was clear.
According to Social Identity Theory, individuals see their groups as part of their self-worth and may perceive criticism of the group as a personal attack. This is where bias becomes decisive. Through in-group bias, people judge their own groups more leniently, while according to Albert Bandura’s concept of moral disengagement, the individual can reinterpret wrongdoing when group interests are at stake. These mechanisms are observed in all political identities.
According to a study by Lucas Molleman and colleagues published in October 2026 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, observing others’ rule violations can increase one’s own violations, and this effect grows stronger with a shared political identity. A direct equation is not possible. Although experimental violations cannot be directly equated with political corruption, it is noted that continuously justified wrongs can, over time, also alter moral standards.
Why it matters
The repercussions of the fund crisis now require monitoring not only investors’ losses but also how criticism is received in the public sphere; in this form, the development concerns readers who follow political communication and the media as much as it does the victims. The distance between Erdoğan’s emphasis that they have a questioning base and the reaction some supporters have shown toward journalists covering the crisis leaves open the question of the extent to which the leader’s rhetoric is reflected in the behavior of the base. The psychology research cited shows that this distance is not unique to one camp, that observing rule violations under a shared political identity can feed similar behavior, and that continuously justified wrongs can, over time, alter moral standards. The debate thus opens the door to a broader question about how accountability will function in similar crises.