Populism in Post-Crisis Greece

Abstract

Greece was the European nation worst hit by the European Sovereign Debt Crisis, as well as the nation most resistant to reform after it. One of the key reasons for this was the political chaos and rise of populism that came about as a side-effect of the financial crisis. Thus began a new era in Greek politics known as post-metapolitefsi populism. In order to understand how extreme of a case Greece truly is, the case was compared to the theories of Margaret Canovan and Paul Taggart who are both well-respected authors within the scholarly field on populism. The research aimed to test the transferability of two of their theories to that of post-metapolitefsi populism in Greece. Canovan (1999) argues that populism in democracies arises through a gap between the redemptive and pragmatic side of democracy whilst Taggart (2004) presents five features of an ‘ideal’ type of populism. The research explores how well each key tenet of each theory fits with the rise and functioning of recent populism in Greece.