Richard Clogg
Parties and Elections in Greece: The Search for Legitimacy
London, C. Hurst & Co, 1988
xvii + 268 pp., £19.50
ISBN 0905838904
This is an extremely readable and clearly organised work, and should be of great interest to the growing number of students of Creek politics. It deals with political parties and elections in Greece during the post-war period, with particular emphasis on elections since the collapse of the military regime in 1974. The meteoric rise of PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) to power in 1981 and its important implications for Greek politics is duly debated and analysed.
The book in fact aspires to offer an informed introduction to the study of Greece’s political system which is seen through the eyes of an academic historian rather than a trained political scientist. The author identifies some significant structural changes since the war, namely the elimination on the one hand of the plethora of political parties or groupings organised around elusive personalities and on the other the considerable degree of ideological cohesion and mass organisation achieved by the main Greek political parties today against a highly personalistic and clientelist tradition. The process of political modernisation is on the right track even if some of the features of traditional political culture still survive, Clogs Concludes, a verdict few would actually be prepared to challenge seriously.