Abstract
This chapter discusses the impact of austerity policies on Greek politics and attempts to identify patterns of continuity and change in the post-1974 era. The first part maps the evolution of politics in Greece, with a focus on the development of the clientelistic state, which shaped state policies largely based on political cost. The second part discusses the changes occurring post-2010, including the decline of the socialist PASOK in favour of the rise of fringe populist parties. It is argued that the political and social turmoil created by the austerity measures adopted have been conditioned by the already existing particular brand of populist and clientelistic governance, which stood at the core of the country’s party political system at least since the 1980s.
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Notes
- 1.
By the term Metapolitefsi, we refer to the political transition which occurred in Greece after the end of the military junta in 1974 towards representative democracy. The Metapolitefsi period has been characterized by the dominance of PASOK and ND, who alternated in power. The 2012 elections brought about what has been largely regarded as the end of the Metapolitefsi, with PASOK collapsing to single-digit figures and ND severely weakened.
- 2.
During that period, a dual narrative was created and reproduced around the political parties’ electoral identity in favour or against passing harsh austerity measures. This pro-Memorandum/anti-Memorandum dichotomy proved to be decisive in the electoral result.
- 3.
It was quite usual during the May 2012 electoral period for ‘anti-Memorandum’ indecisive voters to paradoxically claim that they were debating voting for either SYRIZA (a left-wing party, quite often referred to as radical Left) or Golden Dawn (a neo-Nazi, right-wing party).
- 4.
Golden Dawn ’s share of the vote in June 2012 was remarkably stable, registering 6.92 per cent.
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Prodromidou, A. (2018). Continuity and Change in Greek Politics in an Age of Austerity. In: Parker, O., Tsarouhas, D. (eds) Crisis in the Eurozone Periphery. Building a Sustainable Political Economy: SPERI Research & Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69721-5_9
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