Dynamics of Polarization in the Greek Case

This article focuses on the dynamics of polarization emerging within Greek political culture in the postauthoritarian setting. Following a brief historical framing, we trace Left–Right polarization between the two major parties of the period: Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and New Democracy (ND). The party-based polarization of PASOK/ND was arguably the main axis of political antagonism in Greece from the 1970s until the end of the 2000s. By 2009, polarization had ebbed due to an ideological convergence of the two parties toward the center, but the onset of the 2009 economic crisis dislocated the established two-party system and facilitated the emergence of a new political landscape comprising many new political actors, most notably the Coalition of the Radical Left, SYRIZA. Using a predominantly quantitative methodology, we focus on a set of dimensions of polarization brought forward or re-activated within the context of economic crisis