Europeanisation under authoritarian rule: Greek business and the hoped-for transition to electoral politics, 1967–1974

ABSTRACT

The article addresses the domestic impact of the freezing of the Greek association with the European Economic Community (EEC) on business–government relations during the colonels’ dictatorship in Greece (1967–1974). Focusing on the Federation of Greek Industries (SEV), the author argues that in the face of the Europeanisation of Greek industry, Greek business embarked upon a strategy prioritising liberalisation as a means towards rapprochement with the EEC. But this strategy was not part of a pro-democracy agenda. On the contrary, seeking a viable political regime and future accession to the EEC, SEV supported an abortive authoritarian transition to electoral politics in 1973.

KEYWORDS:

• Europeanisation
• EEC
• Greece
• Greek association with the EEC
• Greek business
• Federation of Greek Industries
• business–government relations
• liberalisation
• authoritarian transition
• transition to electoral politics
• authoritarian rule
• colonels’ dictatorship

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies (Princeton University, May 2014). The author’s sincere thanks to Christos Hadziiossif, Gelina Harlaftis, Mogens Pelt, Neil Rollings, Federico Romero, and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts. The author would like to thank Alyson Price for the language editing. The author is also grateful to all interviewees as well as to Ioannis Makarezos.

Notes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was supported by the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (IKY) under the Graduate Scholarships Programme (2010–2014), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) under the One-Year Research Grants and the German–Greek Future Fund programmes (2015–2017), and the Max Weber Programme at the European University Institute in collaboration with the IKY under the HMERRA–Max Weber Scholarship programme (2017–2018).

Notes

1 Lavdas, though, downplays to 300 the number of member firms.

2 In fact, Bermeo was mostly based on polemical essays published by prominent regime opponents during the dictatorship, or shortly afterwards, supplemented with a couple of scholarly works written between the late 1970s and the mid-1980s, and statistical sources.

3 In 1974, inflation hit a record high (26,9%), GDP shrank for the first time in decades (–6.4%), and the trade deficit remained high (–13.7%) due to the oil price shock. For the data, see Ministry of National Economy (2001).

4 Most famously when SEV coined the term ‘social-mania’, accusing the conservative Konstantinos Karamanlis administration of socialist economic policies. For this episode, see To Vima (6 March 1976).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (IKY) under the Graduate Scholarships Programme (2010–2014), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) under the One-Year Research Grants and the German–Greek Future Fund programmes (2015–2017), and the Max Weber Programme at the European University Institute in collaboration with the IKY under the HMERRA–Max Weber Scholarship programme (2017–2018).

Notes on contributors

Christos Tsakas

Christos Tsakas is a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. He holds a PhD in modern history from the University of Crete. His main fields of interest are European integration history and authoritarian studies. Before moving to Florence, Christos was a postdoctoral researcher at the Free University Berlin, working on German–Greek relations in the context of European integration. As an external researcher at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies (IMS)/Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas he initiated the IMS archives and oral history project, documenting post-war Greek industrialisation.