Political Socialisation and Regime Change: How the Right Ceased to be Wrong in Post-1974 Greece

DOI10.1177/0032321717697345
Published date01 December 2017
Date01 December 2017
Subject MatterArticles
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321717697345
Political Studies
2017, Vol. 65(4) 1000 –1020
© The Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0032321717697345
journals.sagepub.com/home/psx
Political Socialisation and
Regime Change: How the
Right Ceased to be Wrong in
Post-1974 Greece
Elias Dinas
Abstract
In established democracies, parties provide ideological cues either with their policy stances or
with their social group affiliations. In new democracies, these signals are still ambiguous. What
determines the meaning attached to ideological labels in such circumstances? Existing explanations
emphasise country-specific ethno-linguistic cleavages. I propose a different explanation, which
rests on the ideological legacy of the authoritarian past. Dictatorships are linked either to the left
or to the right. This association between ideology and the authoritarian past persists after the
democratic transition, distorting people’s perceptions of the meaning of ideological labels. This
distortion translates into a bias against the ideology of the dictator. As the party system consolidates,
however, the role of history is overcome by the accumulation of democratic experience. Focusing
on the case of Greece, I propose a modelling framework to test the presence of this bias, its
observational implications and its evolution along the process of party system consolidation.
Keywords
ideology, authoritarian past, projection bias, new democracies, Greece
Accepted: 18 December 2016
Evidence from new democracies has questioned the degree to which the left-right (LR)
dimension can be exported beyond established democracies (Evans and Whitefield,
1993; Kitschelt et al., 1999). Drawing mainly on case studies (Evans and Whitefield,
1995; Shabad and Slomczynski, 1999) and comparisons among post-communist coun-
tries (Gijsberts and Nieuwbeerta, 2000), most of this research points to the important
role of non-economic cleavages in shaping the party competition and voting behaviour
of new democracies (Evans and Whitefield, 1995; Tucker, 2002; Whitefield, 2002).
Illustratively, the organisational and symbolic role of religion in some of these countries
(Van der Brug et al., 2008; White et al., 2000), as well as their ethnic composition
(Evans and Whitefield, 1998), have featured as important determinants of the ideologi-
cal outlook of these electorates.
School of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Corresponding author:
Elias Dinas, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, Brasenose College, Oxford
OX1 4AJ, UK.
Email: elias.dinas@politics.ox.ac.uk
697345PSX0010.1177/0032321717697345Political StudiesDinas
research-article2017
Article
Dinas 1001
Although these explanations have shed light on the formation of political cleavages in
new party systems, they impose a static understanding of how ideological perceptions
form, not allowing the gap between new and old democracies to close as the former con-
solidate. In other words, although they take into account the different underlying social
bases of emerging democracies, they seem to neglect the fact that all these democracies
are actually new and, as such, they should be characterised by some learning process in
their understanding of ideological terms.
I propose a different explanation for the observed differences between new and estab-
lished democracies in the content and meaning of LR. The argument draws on the ideo-
logical legacy of the authoritarian regime. Rather than using the LR semantics as a
continuum to signal their policies, in new democracies both political elites and masses
build on the lines of the past. The resulting party system exaggerates ideological dichoto-
mies, formed on the basis of the ideological label of the previous regime. This context is
likely to shift public sentiments against the ideology of the dictator. Left-wing authoritar-
ian regimes, as those stemming from the Communist bloc, should thus be followed by
negative predispositions towards the left side of the ideological spectrum, whereas right-
wing authoritarian regimes, such as military dictatorships, should be succeeded by anti-
right sentiments. I characterise this distortion of ideological perceptions as anti-left and
anti-right bias, respectively. The first aim of the article is to propose an analytical frame-
work which will enable the systematic examination of whether such biases actually exist.
The hand of history, however, is unlikely to persist forever; its legacy might be eventu-
ally overcome by the accumulated experience of the political parties along the course
of party system maturation. The dynamics of this process, however, remain unclear. Is
change the result of shocks which hit all citizens at the same rate, or is there a generational
element of political learning (Stoker and Jennings, 2008), with the young being quicker
in adapting their perceptions to the democratic reality (Franklin and van Spanje, 2012)?
The second aim of this study is to shed light onto this exact question, distinguishing
between adjustment trajectories which characterise the electorate as a whole and those
which result from cohort replacement.
Addressing these questions – which both allude to the interplay between history and
politics in the meaning attached to LR semantics – necessitates two elements. First, one
needs to focus on a political context in which the shadow of the authoritarian rule is still
present. Second, a relatively long period of uninterrupted democratic rule is necessary so
that we can examine whether historical references are overcome by the actual experience
with the political actors operating in the democratic regime. The Greek political system,
as formulated after the democratic transition in 1974, provides a case which fulfils these
requirements. Since the authoritarian rule was explicitly linked to the right, it is interesting
to examine whether the newly formed democratic regime was characterised by anti-right
bias. Moreover, the consolidation of the party system allows us to explore the underlying
forces behind the transformation of the content of ideology over time.1
The Meaning of LR in New Political Contexts
The use of LR as an analytical tool whereby party competition and public opinion can be
depicted in a comparative perspective is based on the assumption that LR is given the
same meaning across different contexts. The reason for expecting this similarity lies
mainly on the symbolic role of political parties (Arian and Shamir, 1983). Parties signal
their ideological standpoints either with their issue stances (Knutsen, 1995) or by refer-
ring to relevant societal groups (Zechmesiter, 2006). Individuals, in turn, either opt for
parties which represent their preferred policies or choose a party on different grounds and

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT