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ABSTRACT
The Great Recession triggered an unprecedented level of political turmoil in Greece, leading to a major readjustment of the party system and the near disappearance of the once mighty socialists of PASOK. Gradually, SYRIZA – a radical-leftist-turned-populist party – rose to become the key electoral player under the aegis of its young and popular leader, Alexis Tsipras. SYRIZA eventually won two general elections in 2015 and ruled together with the populist radical right Independent Greeks (ANEL) as junior partner, a coalition of great analytical significance, representing the first ever governing alliance of left-wing and right-wing populist parties in Europe. This contribution investigates reactions to the SYRIZA-ANEL government, giving special emphasis to measures undertaken by domestic and external actors. A key finding that warrants further research is that, under the same conditions of economic crisis that bring populists to power, economic institutions and material constraints can play an important role in taming populist actors and socializing them into the standard rules of the liberal democratic regime.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Paris Aslanidis is a lecturer in the Department of Political Science and the Hellenic Studies Program of the MacMillan Center at Yale University. His work focuses on Greek politics, the quantification of populist discourse, and the nexus between populism and social movements.
Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser is an associate professor of political science at the School of Political Science at Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago de Chile. He is the co-editor, with Cas Mudde, of Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) as well as the co-editor, with Juan Pablo Luna, of The Resilience of the Latin American Right (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014).
Notes
1 Regarding the concept of populism, we follow the so-called ideational approach, which defines populism as a set of ideas characterized by the Manichean distinction between “the people” and “the elite” and upholding the defence of popular sovereignty at any cost. See, amongst others, Aslanidis, “Is Populism an Ideology?”; Hawkins, “Is Chávez Populist?”; Mudde, “The Populist Zeitgeist”; and Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser “Populism.”
2 Armingeon and Baccaro, “The Sorrows of the Young Euro.”
3 Aslanidis, “Populist Social Movements.”
4 Roberts, Changing Course in Latin America.
5 On SYRIZA's populist transformation see Pappas and Aslanidis, “Greek Populism”; Stavrakakis and Katsambekis, “Left-wing Populism in the European Periphery.”
6 On the populist discourse of ANEL see Pappas and Aslanidis, “Greek Populism.”
7 Dinas and Rori, “The 2012 Greek Parliamentary Elections.”
8 Dinas and Konstantinidis, “Tsipras Reaps Benefits.”
9 Rovira Kaltwasser and Taggart, “Dealing with Populists in Government.”
10 Ibid.
11 Tsipras, “Speech by Prime Minister.”
12 Tsipras, “Prime Minister's A. Tsipras Statement.”
13 Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, “Exclusionary vs. Inclusionary Populism.”
14 Petsinis, “Syriza One Year On.”
15 Rovira Kaltwasser and Taggart, “Dealing with Populists in Government.”
16 Konstantopoulou joined the leftmost faction that withdrew from SYRIZA to form the party of the Popular Unity, openly campaigning for Greece's exit from the Eurozone in the September 2015 election. Popular Unity failed to enter parliament.
17 “Greek Referendum Falls Short of Standards – Council of Europe.” Reuters. July 1, 2015. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/01/eurozone-greece-rights-idUSL8N0ZH3IO20150701.
18 de la Torre and Ortiz, “Populist Polarization.”
19 Hawkins, “Responding to Radical Populism.”
20 Andronikidou and Kovras, “Cultures of Rioting.”
21 Moschonas, “A New Left in Greece.”
22 Aslanidis and Marantzidis, “The Impact of the Greek Indignados.”
23 Pappas, “Why Greece Failed.”
24 Greece does not have a Constitutional Court that could bindingly challenge governmental decisions.
25 Rovira Kaltwasser and Taggart, “Dealing with Populists in Government.”
26 “Thomas Piketty: Deutschland hat nie bezahlt.” Die Zeit. June 27, 2015. http://www.zeit.de/2015/26/thomas-piketty-schulden-griechenland.
27 “Grexit and the Morning After.” The New York Times. May 25, 2015. krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/grexit-and-the-morning-after/.
28 “Greece: EPP Group Calls on Government to Respect Commitments.” EPP Group. February 11, 2015. http://www.eppgroup.eu/press-release/Greece%3A-EPP-Group-calls-on-government-to-respect-commitments.
29 Streeck, Buying Time, 160.
30 “Obama Expresses Sympathy for New Greek Government.” The Wall Street Journal. February 1, 2015. http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-expresses-sympathy-for-new-greek-government-1422830309.
31 “Washington Guided Greece in Bailout Talks, Envoy Reveals.” Ekathimerini. September 27, 2015. http://www.ekathimerini.com/201954/article/ekathimerini/news/washington-guided-greece-in-bailout-talks-envoy-reveals.
32 “Greece: Productive Jobs for Growth.” International Labour Organization. http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_319755.pdf.
33 “Transcript of President Jean-Claude Juncker's Press Conference on Greece.” European Commission. June 29, 2015. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-15-5274_en.htm.
34 Streeck, Buying Time.
35 Rovira Kaltwasser and Taggart, “Dealing with Populists in Government.”
36 Batory, “Populists in Government?”
37 Armingeon and Baccaro, “The Sorrows of the Young Euro,” 164.
38 Verbeek and Zaslove, “Italy.”
39 de la Torre and Ortiz, “Populist Polarization.”
40 Hawkins, “Responding to Radical Populism.”