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Populism and Crisis Politics in Greece by Takis S. Pappas (review)

Over the past five years, the Greek financial crisis has stimulated a plethora of studies and analyses of the European Union, its monetary policies, and those of international financial institutions, as well as assessments of the culture, politics, and the economy of Greece. Many of these accounts are simplistic, drawing parallels from European interwar history and politics that have little to do with today’s economic and political realities. One must express dismay about the large number of analysts who have suddenly discovered their Greek “expertise.” In an attempt to provide “new” insights on the origins and prospects of the ongoing Greek financial debacle, many analysts seek a new twist to make their story more compelling. Takis Pappas, having rejected cultural and institutional explanations of the Greek predicament, focuses on a “unified explanation based on the extraordinary development of populism in Greece.” And, eureka, his singleminded explanation is the rise of “populism” in postjunta Greece, particularly in the post1981 period following the election of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), the allegedly socialist party of the charismatic economist and politician Andreas Papandreou. Given the controversy surrounding the career of the late Papandreou, the author is careful to stress that by focusing on him he does not “have any ax to grind.” Disclaimers aside, grinding an ax is what he does, writing as if Greek postjunta politics began in 1981 and not in 1974. Without underestimating the role of populism in Greek politics before or after the fall of the junta, it has now become fashionable to attribute all of Greece’s socioeconomic ills to the late Papandreou. Ironically, many