Hellenic Peronism
Greece arrived at its own version of Peronism by a different route, but with some recent parallels. While in Argentina the sense of clientelism – the feeling among some interest groups that ‘You owe us’ – was forged in large part by a single, charismatic leader, a similar sentiment in Greece has developed from multiple sources over a longer period of time. These dimensions will be considered later, which look at how the history of the country, and the tradition of clientelism, have created a highly dysfunctional and inefficient public sector.
Like Argentina, Greece suffered a right-wing military dictatorship for several years. This followed a civil war and the Nazi occupation of the 1940s, during which Greece lost 13 per cent of her population, the largest proportional loss of all the occupied countries of the Second World War. Accession to the European Union in 1981, and adoption of the single currency in 2001 seemed like a smooth, continuous process out of the nightmares of the mid-twentieth century. After going through the traumas of recent decades, it was natural to focus on the short-term benefits that being in a hard currency area afforded us from 2002 onwards.
In Greece there is a view that the EU is a safe haven – the thinking being: ‘We are in the EU, therefore we are too important to fail, if it comes to a crisis, the Europeans will help us – it’s our safety net.’ This is the problem with free riding: if you have a trust fund to fall back on, you don’t work so hard at school. The same applies to the Greek government; they have lacked motivation because they believe they have a safety net. Thus, it is no coincidence that the pace of reform went through a major slowdown after Greece joined the euro.
