Rocking the Cradle of Democracy

Elections are considered the hallmark of representative democracy. Their essential function is to allow voters to hold existing politicians accountable and to select their future representatives. Yet, the true quality of a democracy is not in direct proportion to the number of elections and electoral contests.

The Transformation of the Greek Party System

Despite a somewhat promising start, the outgoing coalition government of New Democracy (ND), PASOK, and the Democratic Left proved to be short-lived, giving way to a more compact bipartisan cabinet consisting of only ND and PASOK ministers (at an agreed ratio of two-to-one). Toiling under the shackles of a sclerotic austerity program, the first few true attempts at structural reform and downsizing of the wider public sector met with mixed reactions and caused the three-party coalition government to implode. This is only the first episode in a new political era of short-lived coalition governments with shifting partisan compositions.

The Golden Dawn in Comparative Perspective

The purpose of this brief note is to try placing the Golden Dawn in the universe of far right politics in Europe.

The Golden Dawn shocked many observers of Greek politics by receiving 7% in the last elections and it is now polling between 11-12%.  The party has been around for at least two decades, with dismal results whenever it participated in Greek elections – in 2009, it received 0.29%.