Military professionals as political governors: A case study of contemporary Greece

Abstract

In this article we attempt to measure the performance of the Greek military with regard to social change. Using Eckstein and Gurr's model of regime performance—consisting of four variables we hypothesised that military professionalism did not provide the military governors with the necessary political skills to become effective agents of social change. Our analysis, based on interview data supplemented with socio‐economic indicators of the years of military rule (1966–74), led us to the conclusion that aspects of military professionalism, at least in the case of Greece, prevented the military regime from performing well and thus hampered its ability to generate social change.

Notes

Both authors are Assistant Professors of Political Science at Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri. We wish to thank Professors Frank Dinka, Robin Remington, Theodore Couloumbis and Charles Moskos for their valuable comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper, and Nikos Ballis and George Nikoleto‐poulos for their assistance in arranging interviews with Greek public servants.