Habituating to the New Normal in a Post-earthquake Party System: The 2014 European Election in Greece

Abstract

The article examines the 2014 European election in Greece. Held two years after the double-earthquake elections of 2012 and with the country still mired in a protracted economic crisis, our findings largely support the conclusion that the post-‘earthquake’ European election of 2014 can be classified as one of the most classic second-order elections in the history of Greek elections. Both ideology and attribution of blame for the ongoing economic crisis to the PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) and ND (New Democracy) governments to a large extent explain the victory of SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left). At the same time, however, more fundamental positions towards European unification appear to have become more relevant to party choice for the first time since the early 1980s.

Keywords::

• European Parliament Elections 2014
• Greece
• Second-Order Elections
• SYRIZA
• Golden Dawn
• Austerity
• Party System Realignment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. Real GDP growth was − 3.1 per cent in 2009, − 4.9 per cent in 2010, − 7.1 per cent in 2011, − 7.0 per cent in 2012 and − 3.9 per cent in 2013. Greece's GDP has continuously contracted from the third quarter of 2008 to the second quarter of 2014 (Eurostat).

^{2. Twenty-seven point three} per cent in May 2014 (National Statistical Service of Greece).

^3. PASOK government headed by George Papandreou; PASOK, ND and LAOS government headed by former ECB visepresident Lucas Papademos; caretaker government headed by Greek judge Panagiotis Pikrammenos; ND, PASOK and DIMAR government headed by Antonis Samaras; and ND and PASOK government headed by Antonis Samaras.

^4. ‘Survey of Political Conjuncture’ (May 2014); N = 1005; fieldwork: 29 April-6 May 2014 and ‘European Elections of 25th May 2014 Vote Estimate I Wave’ (22 May 2014); N = 1210; fieldwork: 19–22 May 2014. Both surveys were conducted for the newspaper Efhmerida ton Suntakton.

^5. Survey conducted by Public Opinion and Market Research Unit, University of Macedonia for Skai TV; N = 1003; fieldwork: 15–24 May 2014.

^6. ‘European Elections of 25^th May 2014 Vote Estimate I Wave; (22 May 2014); see note 4.

^7. Olive Tree was founded in March 2014 to contest the European election following a failed attempt by 58 intellectuals (including academics, former politicians and artists) to build a broad centre-left coalition that would include PASOK and DIMAR. In the end, the coalition included PASOK and a few minor parties/civil society groups: Agreement for the New Greece (Συμφωνία για τη Νέα Ελλάδα), Dynamic Greece (Δυναμική Ελλάδα) and New Reformers (Νέοι Μεταρρυθμιστές).

^8. The post-electoral survey Hellenic Panel Study 2014 (HPS: EES 2014) was conducted by the Laboratory of Applied Political Research, Aristotle University Thessaloniki, within the framework of the European Election Study (EES) 2014 (Andreadis et al. 2014). It was a web survey using a non-probability sample. In an attempt to avoid biased estimates, weights have been constructed for gender, age, recoded education, modified regions and valid votes. For more details see Andreadis (2014).

^9. In the two previous European elections there was an alternation between the two former major parties: in 1999 the opposition ND emerged as the winner, and in 2009 PASOK gained more votes than the governing ND.

^10. Its founder, Chatzimarkakis, was a former German politician, previously elected as an MEP with the Free Democrats, and accused of plagiarism in 2011.

^11. We chose to present the proportional predicted change in the probability of voting for each party in an attempt to address the unequal distribution of support for each party in the sample and to render the results comparable across different parties regardless of size. For this reason, each predicted change in probability is divided by the proportional share of the vote for each party in the sample. The initial values of the predicted changes in probability are obtained by executing the “prchange” Stata command on our multinomial logit model.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eftichia Teperoglou

Eftichia Teperoglou is Lecturer at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (CIES-IUL). Her main research interests are in the fields of political and electoral behaviour with a focus on European elections, comparative politics and public opinion. She has published work in international journals and in edited volumes. She is the author of the book Οι άλλες «εθνικές» εκλογές: Αναλύοντας τις Ευρωεκλογές στην Ελλάδα 1981–2014 [The Other ‘National’ Elections. Analysing the European Elections in Greece 1981–2014], Papazissis, 2015 in press.

Emmanouil Tsatsanis

Emmanouil Tsatsanis is Researcher at CIES-IUL and Visiting Assistant Professor at ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL). His research interests centre on electoral behaviour, political identities and ideology, usually with an area focus on Southern Europe. His work has appeared in edited volumes and journals including West European Politics, International Political Science Review, Party Politics, Journal of Political Ideologies, South European Society and Politics and Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties.

Elias Nicolacopoulos

Elias Nicolacopoulos is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Athens. His various research activities have contributed to the development of election research in Greece. Since the 1994 European elections he has been responsible for the exit poll of Mega Channel conducted by the opinion poll company OPINION SA. He has published articles in various journals and in edited volumes. His numerous publications include H Kαχεκτική Δημοκρατία: Kόμματα και Εκλογές 1946–1967 [The Withered Democracy. Parties and Elections 1946–1967], Patakis, 2001.