Yet the problem with concentrating power is that the appetite tends to grow with the eating. And the more concentrated power gets, the more unaccountable it becomes. Meanwhile, personalized rule almost always subverts the very institutions that provide the real long-term foundation for sound public policy and economic dynamism: an independent, professional judiciary; a free press; apolitical, qualified civil servants, regulators, and security services.

The result, unsurprisingly, is that while strongman regimes can be successful for a while, sometimes dazzlingly so, they usually end up reproducing the problems they were supposed to solve.

This is tragically what seems to have happened under Erdoğan, whose decision-making has grown capricious and reckless in almost direct proportion to his degree of control. With the narrowing of the inner circle around the Turkish president, moreover, capable technocrats have increasingly given way to inept cronies and yes-men, while the extraordinary methods used to stamp out corruption and criminality have created irresistible opportunities for new, even more spectacular manifestations of it.