As always, there's some cherry picking in studies that aren't totally conclusive but it does seem to be gathering evidence that power corrupts, and not just because of the kinds of people who seek it. Power itself makes you more likely to lie, less likely to have empathy and more likely to believe you're a super-normal person with magical capabilities to whom the rules do not apply. (This also happens if you read The Secret).
Which is why we need to a) take as much as it out of the hands of authority as possible and b) put as much as possible into the hands of everyone else. Kind of like empowering employees. Or as so beautifully summed up by CJ on The West Wing:
"In times of crisis, people want to feel like soldiers, not victims."
And that's why the arguments of "don't vote, they're all bastards anyway" annoys me so much. The more you strip people of agency, the more they let themselves become victims, which just lets authority be even more bastardly.
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