Parliamentary Elites in Transition: Political Representation in Greece (Reform and Transition in the Mediterranean) 3031116933, 9783031116933

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REFORM AND TRANSITION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SERIES EDITOR: IOANNIS N. GRIGORIADIS

Parliamentary Elites in Transition Political Representation in Greece

Edited by Manina Kakepaki Fani Kountouri

Reform and Transition in the Mediterranean

Series Editor Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey

The series of political and economic crises that befell many countries in the Mediterranean region starting in 2009 has raised emphatically questions of reform and transition. While the sovereign debt crisis of Southern European states and the “Arab Spring” appear prima facie unrelated, some common roots can be identified: low levels of social capital and trust, high incidence of corruption, and poor institutional performance. This series provides a venue for the comparative study of reform and transition in the Mediterranean within and across the political, cultural, and religious boundaries that crisscross the region. Defining the Mediterranean as the region that encompasses the countries of Southern Europe, the Levant, and North Africa, the series contributes to a better understanding of the agents and the structures that have brought reform and transition to the forefront. It invites (but is not limited to) interdisciplinary approaches that draw on political science, history, sociology, economics, anthropology, area studies, and cultural studies. Bringing together case studies of individual countries with broader comparative analyses, the series provides a home for timely and cutting-edge scholarship that addresses the structural requirements of reform and transition; the interrelations between politics, history and culture; and the strategic importance of the Mediterranean for the EU, the USA, Russia, and emerging powers.

Manina Kakepaki · Fani Kountouri Editors

Parliamentary Elites in Transition Political Representation in Greece

Editors Manina Kakepaki Institute of Political Research National Centre for Social Research Athens, Greece

Fani Kountouri Department of Political Science and History Panteion University Athens, Greece

ISSN 2945-641X ISSN 2945-6428 (electronic) Reform and Transition in the Mediterranean ISBN 978-3-031-11693-3 ISBN 978-3-031-11694-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11694-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Sebastiaan Kroes This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

This book is the outcome of a long journey in our research on representation in Greece. Much of the analysis presented here uses data from the socioscope database on Members of the Greek Parliament developed at the National Centre for Social Research (EKKE). We wish to thank the former and current Presidents of EKKE, Emeritus Professor Thomas Maloutas and Professor Nikos Demertzis for supporting this project throughout the years. The initial design and preparation of the database was funded through the project “Dynamic Management of Social Databases and Cartographic Representations - SoDaMap” (funding: GSRT, NSRF 2013–2015), with updates being made possible thanks to funding from the project “Research, Education and Infrastructures: the triangulation of EKKE strategic axes” (funding: GSRT, NSRF 2014–2020). Many people worked at EKKE during the years in data collection and verification. We wish to thank Nikos Klironomos, Katerina Papaevaggelou, Constantinos Pierides, Stavros Skrinis and Panayiotis Sopakis Valalakis for patiently going through thousands of CVs, coding and correcting all the information. During the last two years, part of this work was presented in a joint postgraduate course organized by Panteion University and EKKE on political elites. We thank the students of the course for their comments and suggestions, especially at a time when classes moved online, and we all had to adapt literally overnight to a new reality. We also thank Vassiliki Georgiadou, Andreas Kollias and Gerassimos Moshonas for their v

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

constructive comments when part of the conclusions was presented at the academic seminar of the Department of Political Science and History of Panteion University. Many thanks are given to the editorial team at Palgrave, especially Ambra Filotello and Ashwini Elango, project coordinator of this book, for their guidance and assistance during all steps of production and to Professor Ioannis N. Grigoriadis for giving us the opportunity to publish in this book series. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for accepting the book proposal and providing insightful feedback. The chapter authors of this volume responded to our (endless) demands with professionalism and diligence; we are grateful to all of them. It has been a great pleasure working with all of you. On a personal note, the first editor would like to thank Yiannis and Melina for their love, support and understanding. The second editor would like to thank Nikos, Apostolia and Michalis for their patience and long-standing love and support. During the publishing process we were shocked by the news of the sudden death of Ilias Nicolacopoulos. His work on MPs and candidates’ data collection and his fascinating knowledge of the insides of Greek politics was the inspiration that sparked our own interest in this area years ago. This book is dedicated to his memory.

Praise for Parliamentary Elites in Transition

“This is a carefully designed and written book about different dimensions of the evolution of descriptive representation in Greece (with a further comparison with Cyprus) in different periods of crisis and stability. Kakepaki and Kountouri make an excellent job in coordinating scholars working with the same database of Greek MPs. The fascinating findings of the respected team of scholars make the book a landmark to be replicated in other countries and a “must read” for democracy scholars.” —Xavier Coller, Professor, National Distance Education University, Spain “This book, based on a solid and unified data set covering the 19892019 period, provides a really comprehensive analysis of the sociodemographic and political characteristics of Greek parliamentary elites. It is a genuinely innovative contribution to the literature on political elites. An exciting read for political scientists and for anyone interested in the transformations of parliamentary representation. Highly recommended.” —Gerassimos Moschonas, Professor, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Greece

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Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

Introduction: Greek Parliamentary Elites in Transition (1989–2019) Manina Kakepaki and Fani Kountouri Gender, Representation, and the Politcs of Exclusion: Or, Who Represents, Who Is Represented, What Is at Stake? Maro Pantelidou Maloutas Mind the Gaps: The Class Dynamics of the Greek Parliamentary Elite Giorgos Bithymitris Revolving Doors Between Journalism and Politics: A Comparative Approach to Traditional and New Professions in the Greek Parliament Fani Kountouri Young Conservatives, Media Personalities or Old-School Elites? The Many Faces of New Democracy MPs Across Time Manina Kakepaki From Hegemony to Pasokification: Socialist MPs in Transition Gerasimos Karoulas

1

29

57

83

109

131

ix

x

7

8

9

10

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CONTENTS

From an Outsider to a Mainstream Party. The Parliamentary Elite of SYRIZA as an Indicator of Party Transformation Danai Koltsida

157

What Are the Far Right MPs Like? Radical and Extreme Right Parties in the Greek Parliament Constantinos Pierides

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The Rise of Technocrats in Greek Ministerial Elites: Evidence from 1989 to 2021 Nicos Souliotis, Nikos Klironomos, and Gerasimos Karoulas

205

Change in Continuity? A Comparison of Parliamentary Representation in Cyprus and Greece in the Background of the Economic Crisis Yiannos Katsourides and Antrea Kosta Conclusions: Who Gets Elected and When. Change and Continuity in Parliament and a Proposed Typology Fani Kountouri and Manina Kakepaki

Index

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259

279

Notes on Contributors

Bithymitris Giorgos holds a Ph.D. from Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Social Policy Department. He is a Researcher (Grade C) at the National Centre for Social Research (www.ekke.gr), with expertise in the fields of social stratification, social and economic inequalities. His current research interest focuses upon working-class identities in crisis and post-crisis contexts. Drawing mainly on cultural approaches of social class, he explores the social and cultural components of class identifications and their political implications. Kakepaki Manina is Principal Researcher at the National Centre for Social Research (EKKE)—Institute of Political Research. She has studied Political Science in Athens and Political Behaviour in Essex and holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Athens. Her main research interests are on descriptive representation, gender relations, youth political participation and data visualization. She has directed and collaborated on more than thirty national and international research projects on topics such as political elites (INTUNE), political representation (REDI), youth political participation (YouWho), gender equality policies (QUING), and since 2010 is a member of the Greek ESS research team. She has authored and co-authored numerous publications in Greek and English and has edited a volume on the socio-political profile of Greek parliamentary representatives (in Greek). She is the Principal Investigator of the dataset “Members of the Greek Parliament 1989–2019”,

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available on the socioscope.gr platform, which offers visualizations on open social and political data. Currently she coordinates EKKE’s Gender Studies Research Lab and the Centre’s Committee on Gender Equality. Karoulas Gerasimos is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science of the University of Crete. He also teaches at the Hellenic Open University, while he is post-doctoral researcher at the National Centre for Social Research. He holds a Ph.D. in political sociology from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. As adjunct lecturer he had taught at the Department of Political Science of the University of Crete, at the Department of Sociology of the University of the Aegean, as well as, on the National School of Public Administration and Local Government. His main research interests are focused on the areas of political representation and elites, political institutions and political parties, political behavior and contemporary political theory. He has published several articles on scientific journals, edited volumes and conference proceedings. He had worked for several social partners and research institutions, while he was member of the administrative board of the Hellenic Political Science Association. Katsourides Yiannos is Assistant Professor at the Department of Politics and Governance, University of Nicosia. His research interests include South European politics, Cyprus and Greek politics and history, radical left and far right political parties, political elites, political participation, political institutions, colonialism and nationalism. He is the author of three monographs and his articles have appeared in West European Politics, South European Society and Politics and the Journal of European Integration, among others. Klironomos Nikos holds a graduate degree from the Department of Political Science and History of Panteion University of Political and Social Sciences and is a postgraduate student in the same Department in “Political Sociology and Comparative Political Analysis”. He has also studied Informatics at the Department of Informatics of the Athens University of Economics and Business. He is a research assistant at the National Center for Social Research (EKKE) and Panteion University. He has participated in several research projects and surveys as research personnel or as a data administrator. His research interests include Political and Electoral Sociology, Political Elites, Political Communication, Network Analysis, Big Data and Social Data Science. He has published several articles in scientific journals and collective volumes.

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Koltsida Danai is a Lawyer and Political Scientist, currently the Director of Nicos Poulantzas Institute and Vice-President of the Transform! Europe Network. She has worked as a policy consultant in the fields of electoral engineering, local and regional government and in political polling. Her research work focuses on political representation in its various aspects: study of political personnel, legislation and institutional reforms concerning the function of the party system, electoral behavior and electoral legislation. She recently edited (with Amieke Bouma and Cornelia Hildebrandt) the volume Radical in Diversity. Europe’s Left 2010–2020 (Merlin Press, 2021) and she regularly publishes research and policy papers for Nicos Poulantzas Institute and Transform! Europe Network. Kosta Antrea holds a Master’s Degree in Political Sociology and Comparative Politics from the Department of Political Science and History at Panteion University. She currently works as a Project Manager at a Cypriot NGO that implements research. Her research interests focus on the far right political parties in Greece and Cyprus and political elites. Kountouri Fani is Assistant Professor of Political Science-Political Communication at the Department of Political Science and History, Panteion University, Greece, since 2013. She received her Ph.D. on Political Science from the Department of Political Science, University of Pantheon Sorbonne I (Paris). She was a research fellow at the National Centre of Social Research (EKKE) (since 2010). She is author (in Greek) of two books Political Publicity and Media. Political Parties and Media during the 2000’s (Athens: G. Dardanos, 2011) and Public Problems on Political Agenda (e-book, Kallipos, 2015). She has published in Greek, French and English in edited volumes and peer-review journals. Her current research focuses on political communication and digital democracy, the concepts of trust-distrust and political elites in national and European levels. She directs and collaborates on research projects on topics such as “Enlightened trust: An examination of trust and distrust in governance-conditions, effects and remedies” (Horizon 2020) and “Polarized Democracy. New divisions in politics, media and social media in Greece (2010–2020)” (ELIDEK2 for the support of Faculty Members). She has collaborated with Manina Kakepaki in the development of the socioscope.gr platform of the dataset “Members of the Greek Parliament 1989–2019”.

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Pantelidou Maloutas Maro is Professor Emerita of Political Science at the University of Athens and former Director of its Laboratory for Greek Politics. She specializes in issues concerning democracy, equality, citizenship, the cultural aspects of politics and the young as political actors. Gender constitutes the central component of her approach as a theoretical standpoint and in research. She has participated in and directed many research projects on gender, both at Greek institutions and of the DG Research. She has been employed as expert evaluator for research proposals and functioned as main consultant in projects of the Greek General Secretariat for Gender Equality. From 2014 to 2016 she was President of the Greek Political Science Association, member of the IPSA. She is the author of many articles, book chapters and eleven books, five of which refer to aspects of gender and politics. In English see, The Gender of Democracy: Citizenship and Gendered Subjectivity, London, Routledge, 2006. Pierides Constantinos was born in Athens in 1983. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Department of Political Science and History, Panteion University and an M.Sc. in European Politics and Governance from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He started teaching as an adjunct lecturer in the department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia (2019–2020) and since 2020 he teaches at the department of Political Science, University of Crete. He has worked as a researcher at the National Centre of Social Research (EKKE) in the framework of the project “Dynamic Management of Social Data Databases and Cartographic Representations—Socioscope of Social Data”, as a political analyst, as an account executive for Market Research, and as an editor for various newspapers and websites. His research interests focus on cleavage theory, electoral behavior, political parties and social movements. Souliotis Nicos is Principal Researcher at the National Center for Social Research (EKKE). He holds a diploma in Sociology from the Panteion University (1994–1998) and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris (1998–2005). His research activity and publications concern issues of economic sociology, urban

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

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sociology and sociology of culture (see https://ekke.academia.edu/Nic osSouliotis). He recently published a book entitled Economists technocrats ´ ες σ τ ην in Greek political scene 1974–2019 (Oικ oν oμoλ´oγ oι τ εχ ν oκρ ατ ελληνικ η´ π oλιτ ικ η´ σ κην η´ 1974-2019), Alexandria.

List of Figures

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

5.1 5.2 7.1 7.2 9.1

Fig. 10.1 Fig. 10.2 Fig. 11.1

ND’s share of vote and PPG turnover, 1974–2019 (%) Seniority of ND Parliamentarians, 1989–2019 Educational background of SYRIZA MPs (2012–2019) Professional background of SYRIZA MPs—Special cases Number and percentage of technocrats per governmental term in Greece 1989–2021 Female representation in parliament before and after the crisis (Greece and Cyprus) Elite turnover before and after the crisis—Cyprus and Greece (%) The types of MPs in each period of analysis

115 121 168 169 214 247 252 272

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List of Tables

Table Table Table Table

1.1 1.2 1.3 2.1

Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 3.3 Table 3.4 Table 3.5 Table 3.6 Table 3.7 Table 3.8 Table Table Table Table

4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4

The Greek Parliament, 1974–2019. Basic dimensions Factors related to change and continuity in Parliament Retrievable information by Party (select variables) Socio-demographic and political profile of women in Parliament, 1989–2019 (in % except for mean age and mean terms, missing data not included) The size of the three major class groups in Greece within the last decade Social class scheme The class structure of the Greek parliament (1989–2019) Occupation-based class composition of the Greek parliament across time Public vs. private sector per occupational category Use of trade unionism and kinship as networking resources per occupational category Occupational composition of MPs of left-wing and centre-left parties Occupational composition of MPs of right-wing and centre-right parties Professions per party I (%) Professions per party II (%) Socio-political profile structure of professions (%) The temporal transformation of the socio-profile structure of journalists (N = 239) (%)

9 16 18

46 63 66 68 70 72 73 75 76 93 94 98 99

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.5 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 6.1 Table 6.2 Table 6.3 Table 6.4 Table 7.1

Table 7.2 Table 7.3

Table 7.4 Table 8.1 Table Table Table Table Table Table

8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 9.1 9.2

Table 9.3 Table 9.4 Table 9.5 Table 10.1 Table 10.2 Table 10.3 Table 11.1 Table 11.2 Table 11.3

Journalists typology (%) ND’s parliamentary generations and drivers for change Different generations of ND Parliamentarians (% except mean age) Typology of ND Parliamentarians (%) PASOK’s main electoral characteristics (1989–2019) Demographic and professional characteristics of PASOK’s MPs Political experience and trajectories for PASOK’s MPs PASOK’s categories of MPs (experience characteristics) Composition of SYRIZA parliamentary groups—“Newcomers” and other Indicators of high turnover levels SYRIZA parliamentary group composition—Age and gender Sociodemographic and political profile of professional party cadres entering the parliamentary groups of SYRIZA Number and percentage of MPs that were members of the Central Committee of SYRIZA (2012–2019) 2007–2019 far right in Greece, share of vote and number of seats in Parliament LAOS-ANEL-Greek Solution MPs LAOS-ANEL-GS MPs professions and education status Golden dawn MPs Golden dawn MPs professions and education Technocrats by ministry category and position, N = 90 Socioprofessional characteristics of technocratic ministers, N = 90 Results for the two-class model Sex and age of the two classes Two classes of technocratic ministers per government term Party representation post-crisis (Greece and Cyprus) Levels of education and occupations before and after the crisis (Greece) (%) Levels of education and occupations before and after the crisis (Cyprus) (%) Year of entry in Parliament in each period of analysis (%) Socio-demographic profile of MPs in each period of analysis (%) The characteristics of types of MPs

103 118 122 124 142 144 148 150

165 167

170 174 187 192 195 196 197 216 220 223 224 225 245 248 251 263 267 270

LIST OF TABLES

Table 11.4 Table 11.5

The sociodemographic profile of types of MPs (%) The political profile of types of MPs (%)

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Greek Parliamentary Elites in Transition (1989–2019) Manina Kakepaki and Fani Kountouri

This volume aims to contribute to a better understanding of parliamentary change in times of political transition, and specifically, to a better understanding of the composition of the Greek Parliament1 during the last thirty years. Our goal is to discuss the profiles of Members of Parliament (MPs) through the lens of continuity and renewal, starting with the

1 The official name of the Institution is Hellenic Parliament (‘Vouli ton Hellinon’). Throughout this book we use the term Greek Parliament.

M. Kakepaki (B) Institute of Political Research, National Centre for Social Research (EKKE), Athens, Greece e-mail: [email protected] F. Kountouri Department of Political Science and History, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, Greece e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Kakepaki and F. Kountouri (eds.), Parliamentary Elites in Transition, Reform and Transition in the Mediterranean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11694-0_1

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first major political crisis after the Metapolitefsi,2 in 1989 and ending with the last legislative elections of 2019. The volume will contribute to an expanding literature on Parliamentary representation in Southern Europe (see for example Coller Cordero & Jaime Castillo, 2018; Freire et al., 2020) and adopts the socio-demographic approach in the study of elites (Best & Cotta, 2000; Gaxie, 2018). It will draw on previous works by the editors (Kakepaki et al., 2018) and will offer new findings on the political and social origins of those entering the Greek Parliament during the last three decades. During the 30 years under examination, parliamentary representation in Greece reveals a blended picture of change and continuity, as evident in the fact that at any given time in Parliament, MPs from different political generations co-exist. This chapter sets the aims of the book: to examine both political and economic crises as critical times of political and parliamentary transition, and periods of political stability as critical times of political and parliamentary consolidation. To put it differently, our argument is that both periods of change and periods of continuity leave their impact on parliamentary life and questions whether there is continuity in times of crisis and political transition and change in times of political stability. We argue that changing patterns of representation are influenced by macro—and mesolevel challenges in socio-economic structures and political and partisan structures. The decline of mass parties and the rise of cartel parties, new social movements, electoral volatility, technocracy, institutional changes, mediatization and professionalization, the impact of crises, radicalization of politics, and anti-system parties, are all parameters affecting parliamentary representation. Following that, each book chapter will question what—if anything—has changed in the profile of MPs and whether crises (re)shape representation, by bridging gaps in representation or producing new ones and whether political continuity has the power to consolidate the trends that crises bring in. More specifically, we question whether the political crisis of 1989 and the economic crisis of 2010 led to the structural transformation of the political class and whether in both times the

2 The term Metapolitefsi (its closest literal meaning being that of ‘regime change’) although it has been argued that it refers to the moment of transition, is used to describe the entire historical period in Greece after the restoration of democracy in 1974 (for a discussion see Nicolacopoulos, 2015). We also adopt this approach, using this term to refer to the Third Hellenic Republic that begun in 1974.

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old political personnel were swept away opening the way to new political generations. After the double 1989 elections more than half of the MPs entered Parliament for the first time; the same pattern was repeated after the double 2012 earthquake elections (Voulgaris & Nicolacopoulos, 2014). Therefore, each crisis produced a distinct set of Parliamentarians, whom we expect to express and reflect the changing economic, social, and political environment of their time.

Why the Study of Parliamentary Elites Matters: From the Study of Parliaments to the Study of Political and Social Transformations Parliamentary representation has been linked to the crisis of democracy, as the balance between change and continuity is considered an indicator of the quality of democracy. Several key concepts have been used to describe parliamentary turnover as a ‘kind of seismographer’ (Putnam, 1976), a ‘democratic thermometer’ measuring the quality of democracy (Crowther & Manytone, 2007), a necessity that ensures greater representation of and responsiveness to new and different interests but also as a threat to political continuity and to long-term political goals (Francois & Grossman, 2015). On the other hand, continuity has been understood either as a necessity that could guarantee the effectiveness of the democratic governance (Best & Cotta, 2000) but also as a threat to democracy as it could diminish the legitimacy of MPs but also the efficiency of public policies (Matland & Studlar, 2004). The study of the specific characteristics of parliamentary representatives and the structure of opportunities to enter Parliament has been a field of research in political science for several decades. Parry (2005) distinguishes between two directions in the study of parliaments. The first focuses on the political and socio-demographic characteristics of representatives in order to identify paths and patterns of entry and exit from Parliament (Norris, 1997). Placing emphasis on this dimension of representation contributes to a better understanding of the functioning of the political and party system and of democracy in general. At the macrolevel by focusing on transformations we are better able to understand the process of democratization (Best & Cotta, 2000; Cotta & Best, 2007); for example, although historically the social and political characteristics of each country determine both the formation and reproduction

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of the elites, Best and Cotta propose a historical periodization that reflects broader socio-political changes and different types of representatives: from the representatives of the old regime, to the representatives of the elites and the local clientele, then to the cleavage representatives and, finally, to the technocrats and professional politicians with a long party career (Best & Cotta, 2007, pp. 428–429). These different types of representatives also reflect the changes in European party systems: from cadre parties to mass parties and then to cartel parties (Katz & Mair, 1995; Kitschelt, 2000). Since the composition of Parliaments is the main dimension on the studies that look at Parliaments (Patzelt, 1999, p. 245), the question—who gets selected and why and whether social bias matters- reveals the entry barriers faced by many groups such as women (Paxton & Hughes, 2014), ethnic minorities, immigrants, or the working class (Carnes, 2013; Dancygier et al., 2015; Norris & Lovenduski, 1995). The second approach to the research and study of parliamentary representatives draws its tradition on the classical elite theories (Pareto, Michels) and studies more closely the behavior and actions of political representatives, trying to form a framework of analysis regarding either whether they perform as a distinct political class (Borchert & Zeiss, 2003; Beyme, 1996) or the way elites function in contemporary democratic societies (Best & Higley, 2010). This volume adopts the first approach, as it explores with the assistance of a rich dataset the socio-demographic and political characteristics of representatives in Parliament over the last three decades, from 1989 until 2019. The aim is to establish links between parliamentary representation and the broader socio-political changes that took place in Greece during the same time, viewing MPs not just as ‘the “projection” of society into politics […] but also the “projection” of politics into society’ (Best & Cotta, 2000, p. 78). The Study of Parliamentary Elites in Greece: Mapping the Terrain Scholarly attention on political elites has a long—though uneven—tradition in Greece (for an overview see Teperoglou et al., 2020). In its early expression, the field was dominated by historical biographies of nineteenth-century Parliamentarians whilst the pioneering work of Legg (1969) is considered the starting point in the study of elites, covering the Ministerial profiles of cabinet members from 1843–1965. Later accounts on Ministerial elites present some information until 1974 (Koutsoukis, 1978, 1982) or detect continuities and discontinuities in their profiles

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from the beginning of parliamentarism in Greece until the early 2000s (Sotiropoulos & Bourikos, 2002). Regarding parliamentary elites the Metapolitefsi and the new party system after 1974 offers new conceptual tools for their research. High Parliamentary turnover (see next section in this chapter) seems to arouse interest about all these new faces in Parliament. Soon the first accounts offer information on their political and demographic profile (Drettakis, 1991; Karras, 1977, 1981; Metaxas, 1981) whilst other attempts to identify their traits and characteristics provide some internal typologies. Pappas (1999) covers the period from 1974–1981 and distinguishes between ‘the old guard’ (i.e. elected before 1967) and the newcomers (i.e. elected after 1974) in ND, or between patron and partisan MPs in PASOK (Pappas, 2009). The following years some collection of biographical data (Tziovaras & Chiotis, 2007) provides researchers with information, whilst another milestone in the mid-1990s is when the Greek Parliament begins to publish volumes containing short CVs of all MPs elected in the European and the National Parliament. These publications will continue until 2009, when they will be replaced by the official webpage of the Greek Parliament, launched in 2010. The availability of this information symbolizes also the professionalization and personalization of political careers. Gradually, some works begin to focus on specific issues such as the gender imbalance in the Greek Parliament and the historical context related to it (Pantelidou Maloutas, 2007); others on the dimension of nepotism and family networks (Patrikios & Chatzikonstandinou, 2014; Karoulas, 2018), and later on in specific elections or parties (Koltsida, 2019; Kosmopoulos, 2020; Kakepaki, 2021). However, most of these works relied on different sources and methods of data collection, making their connection difficult. In the last years, accounts on Parliamentarians’ descriptive representation (Pitkin, 1967) have become more systematic because of the socioscope database on parliamentary elites (see section on methodology in this chapter). Initially, analysis covered the period from 1996 to 2015 (Kakepaki 2015, 2016) with later efforts introducing some typologies based on the various political generations of Greek MPs (Kakepaki, 2018; Kountouri, 2018) in the same time span. Another important stream of research concerns the substantive representation (Pitkin op.cit) of MPs, usually empirically conceptualized as the degree of congruence between voters and representatives in a range of issues (Freire et al., 2021). As Teperoglou et al. also argue (op.cit. p. 38) the outburst of work in the

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past decade was facilitated by the fact that Greece begun to participate in various comparative research projects allowing for cross-country comparisons. Topics such as the attitudes of Greek Parliamentarians toward European and national identity (Nezi et al., 2010) or the relationship between candidates, parties, and voters (Coller & Sánchez-Ferrez, 2021; Freire et al., 2020) were addressed, in conjunction with a growing interest in the Greek case not in isolation, but in the context of the global financial crisis as one of the Southern European countries mostly hit by the Great Recession (Coller et al., 2018; Cordero & Coller, 2018; Kakepaki et al., 2018). As the decade of crisis has accelerated the decline of trust in parliament and politicians and sped up electoral dealignment (Tsatsanis, 2018), witnessed the rise in anti-system extremist parties (Dinas et al., 2016), whilst endemic features such as clientelism and cronyism, all point to a growing distance between citizens and politicians and impact the quality of democracy. Further on, the growing concern on the ‘challenges to representative democracy’ (Rohrschneider and Thomassen 2020, pp. 4– 13) points to new theoretical and empirical considerations regarding the link between voters and their elected representatives. However, despite the proliferation of all this work, no analysis is yet exclusively devoted to a longitudinal study of Greek parliamentary elites, their cultural and political characteristics and the historical roots that shape their selection and election. The data used in this volume offers a unified dataset and makes the efforts to fill this gap.

The Periodization of Metapolitefsi. Between Stability and Fluidity This section will provide an outline of the principal features of political life of Greece. The Hellenic Republic has a Parliament of 300 seats. Seats are determined by constituency voting for party lists, and voters may select the candidate or candidates of their choice by marking their name on the party ballot. After 1990 a new electoral law (L 1907/1990) stipulated that whenever early elections are called (initially in the same year, with later amendments within 18 months), MPs are elected from

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closed lists.3 MPs are elected for a four-year term by a system of reinforced proportional representation, with the electoral system having over the years varying degrees of proportionality. To that end, the electoral system changes not as the result of crises or other external pressures, but rather as an intention to benefit the government that proposes each change (Dinas, 2020, p. 203). Of the 300 MPs, 288 are elected from open lists in 59 constituencies, 51 of which are multi-seat and 7 singleseats, and the remaining 12 are elected from a single country-wide closed list, the ‘State’ Constituency.4 Elections are normally held every four years unless the Parliament is dissolved earlier, which is not at all uncommon to happen. The two major parties of Metapolitefsi—the social-democratic Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and the conservative New Democracy (ND)—alternated in government from 1974 until the elections of 2012. As shown in Table 1.1, between 1989 and 2009, the combined seats gained by PASOK and ND, ranged from 270 in 1989 to 251 in 2009. The elections of 2009 were the last when the two parties won the majority of votes in the Greek Parliament. PASOK gained 43.92% of the vote and 160 seats (with a difference of ten points from the second party, ND); however, in 11 November 2011, George Papandreou (whose father and grandfather had also served as prime ministers) resigned and a transitional government came to power (a coalition of PASOK, ND, and the radical right-wing popular party LAOS [Popular Orthodox Rally]) with the non-elected technocrat, ex-vice president of the European Central Bank, Lucas Papademos, as prime minister (for an overview of the period, see Verney & Bosco, 2013). The elections of 2012 signaled the end of the old two-party system with an increase in party fragmentation and polarization (Lisi & Tsatsanis, 2020, p. 27). The two biggest parties where now ND and SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) gaining 160 seats out of 300 whilst in the subsequent elections, held in January 2015, SYRIZA, a challenger party from the radical left won the majority of seats and formed an ‘unlikely’ (Rori, 2016) electoral coalition with ANEL, a party 3 The only exception when closed lists were adopted as part of the electoral law and not because of early elections, was in 1985. However, this was abolished in 1989. 4 For the period covered in this volume, from 1989 and until 2015 the country was divided into 56 Constituencies. For the 2019 elections, with legislation passed in 2018 (L4555/2018) two of the largest constituencies in Greece (Athens B’ and Attica) were split in smaller ones, lifting the total number of constituencies to 59.

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of the radical right. During this period, electoral volatility increased whilst the effective number of parties rose, from 3.2 in the last elections before the crisis (2009) to 9.2 in May 2012 (Tsatsanis, 2018, p. 117). After the events of the first SYRIZA government and the snap referendum of July 2015 in order to approve or not the proposals by IMF and the EU, new elections were held in September 2015, under an extremely polarized environment (for and overview of this period see Tsirbas, 2020). SYRIZA won the elections and formed another coalition with ANEL. In the coming year ND elected a new leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, son of the former Prime Minister and ND President Konstantinos Mitsotakis, who won the 2019 elections. These were the first in a decade with a single party government, and with a share of votes of the two first parties passing 70%. Table 1.1 gives the first indications of patterns of continuity and discontinuity in representation within the Greek Parliament between 1989 and 2019. Excluding the May 2012 elections when no party was able to form government and the Parliament was dissolved, MPs turnover is highest in 1989 (46.7%), in January 2015 (40.4%), and in 2019 (38%). The year 1989 stands out as a milestone in the renewal of MPs because the new faces in Parliament are not so much an outcome of an increase in the share of seats of the first (or second) party, as in all other cases, but rather indicate an outcome of an overall ballot renewal. Focusing on the structure of opportunities for parliamentary entry (Best et al., 2001) and on the temporal determinants of parliamentary turnover (Francois & Grossman, 2015), scholars see economic, legislative, and electoral conditions as explanatory factors for parliamentary turnover and their impact in the quality of democracy. If we expand the spectrum of conditions affecting the structure of opportunities for entry in the Parliament, then changes may be in line with longer- and mediumterm processes that bring about changes in the internal and external shock base, as argued by Harmel and Janda (1994). We can codify the changes brought in by social transformations, such as changes in socio-economic structures, in the concentration and distribution of power in advanced societies (Guttsman, 1960, pp. 143–144), but also broader social transformations (rise of educational capital); Party transformations such as internal party changes (changes in leadership), changes in the system of party competition (bipartyism, multipartyism), as well as organizational changes (from mass parties to cartel Parties); Institutional transformations

1974 1977 1981 1985 1989a 1989b 1990 1993 1996 2000 2004 2007 2009 2012a

74.79 67.18 83.95 86.67 83.41 86.86 87.56 86.18 79.61 86.53 85.91 79.94 77.39 35.63

280 264 287 287 270 266 273 281 270 283 284 254 251 160

61.3 38.3 40.5 13.3 46.7 13.4 11.7 25.2 28.9 29.5 30.4 29.4 28.4 49

Open lists Open lists Open lists Closed lists Open lists Open lists Open lists Open lists Open lists Open lists Open lists Open lists Open lists Open lists

Method of MPs elections

n.a −49 79 −11 19 3 2 47 −8 −4 40 −13 58 17

Change in seats of first party from previous election

The Greek Parliament, 1974–2019. Basic dimensions

Share of N of seats of Turnover (%) votes of first first two two parties parties (%)

Table 1.1

n.a 81 −56 11 −36 3 −5 −39 −3 17 −41 −15 −61 39

ND ND PASOK PASOK ND/SYN ND/PASOK/SYN ND PASOK PASOK PASOK ND ND PASOK n.a

1 1.53 1.87 2.46 2.37 3.06 3.64 3.74 3.56 3.53 3.47 3.33 3.3 2.72

Mean terms of MPs

(continued)

Change in Party in Government* seats of second party from previous election

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56.55 64.15 63.55 71.38

200 225 220 244

14.6 40.4 21 38

Closed lists Open lists Closed lists Open lists

Method of MPs elections

21 78 −4 83

Change in seats of first party from previous election 19 −53 −1 −59

ND/PASOK/DIMAR SYRIZA/ANEL SYRIZA/ANEL ND

Change in Party in Government* seats of second party from previous election

3.48 2.98 3.52 3.49

Mean terms of MPs

Source Own elaborations from www.ypes.ekloges.gr, www.parliament.gr and socioscope dataset. Note*We refer to the parties forming Government right after the elections and not to mid-term changes, as in the 2009–2012 period and the Papademos government

2012b 2015a 2015b 2019

(continued)

Share of N of seats of Turnover (%) votes of first first two two parties parties (%)

Table 1.1

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(electoral system, gender quotas, administrative reforms); Systemic transformations in the political system (shift of powers outside parliaments; decline of Parliaments/supremacy of the Executive and Presidentialization); Conjectural transformations (the impact of political, institutional, economic, health, energy crises). In addition, the impact of historical legacies must be considered. Clientelism and political patronage (Lyrintizis 1984, 2005; Marangudakis, 2019), enables a patron–client relationship between voters and MPs especially under the personal preference voting system.5 In the same vein, political dynasties, and nepotism in politics (Patrikios & Chatzikonstandinou 2014; Karoulas, 2019) perpetuate a traditional form of doing politics. Similarly, the relationship between parties and state administration (Sotiropoulos, 2020) and the use of state resources for electioneering purposes, or the tight linkage between parties and interest groups (Sotiropoulos, 2019, p. 605) have an impact on the representational dimension of MPs. Greece seems to be an ideal case to test this link between macro and microstructures of opportunity and its consequences to democracy. The 30 years under consideration can therefore be broken down into three distinct periods, each one, as we shall argue, reflecting political and social changes in patterns of representation (the key elements of each period are summarized in Table 1.2). 1989–1993: The Period of the Political Crisis Considering the 1970s and most of the 1980s as the period of consolidation of the party system, characterized by high total and inter-bloc volatility (Tsatsanis et al., 2020), June 1989 elections mark the first milestone of Metapolitefsi for Greek Parliamentary elites, with the second largest turnover of MPs in Greek parliamentary history (excluding the 1974 starting point). This is the period during which a large segment of the pre-dictatorial generation retires from the political arena and a new generation of MPs is elected in parliament. The late 1980s and early 1990s are the period of the first major political crisis, characterized by coalition governments, the presence of party leaders that had first entered Parliament before the dictatorship, 5 For an MP’s personal account on the relationship between MPs and voters under the personal preference vote, see Nikitiadis (2014).

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and with campaigns and party organization in transition between tradition and modernity. Although most accounts include only the 1989–1990 elections to the crisis period (Nicolacopoulos, 2005), in terms of parliamentary representation we consider this period to include the 1993 elections as well. In 1989, the hegemony of PASOK during the 1980s seems to come to an end after the outburst of the Koskotas scandal.6 The leader of PASOK Andreas Papandreou will lose the elections in June 1989, the first to be held under a system of proportional representation, and a few months after the elections he will be referred to a Special Court for being involved to economic scandals, from which he will be later acquitted. For the first time in Metapolitefsi, Greece will experience a coalition government between the center right party of ND and the allied party of SYNASPISMOS (the Greek Communist Party-KKE and the Greek Left-EAR), with a mandate of ‘Catharsis’ of the political system. This lasted a few months, until November 1989 of the same year. After the elections of November 1989, the three parties (New Democracy, PASOK and the Left Coalition-SYN) will form an Ecumenical Government under the leadership of a non-elected technocrat, respected economist, and former Governor of the Bank of Greece Xenophon Zolotas, in order to take urgent measures to tackle Greece’s growing debt problems. This is another short-lived government succeeded by ND, that wins the elections of March 1990, whilst PASOK wins the 1993 elections, under the leadership of A. Papandreou. This period of deep social and political polarization (Pridham & Verney, 1991) ends with early elections in 1993, after ND loses Parliament’s support. Although the 1993 elections combine elements of both this and the next period, in terms of the conduct of the campaign and the policy orientations of PASOK (Spourdalakis, 1996), we claim that these were crystallized during

6 The Koskotas Scandal was a political and economic scandal that dominated the Greek political scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Koskotas was the former chairman of the Board of the Bank of Crete who was arrested for forgery and embezzlement. Koskotas stated that in many of his economic and entrepreneurial activities he had the support of various high ranking officials of PASOK as well as the chairman of the party A. Papandreou. Koskotas allegations against the Papandreou government resulted in the resignations of several ministers and demands for a vote of no confidence in the government. In 1989a 13-judge court set up by parliament convicted two former cabinet ministers of involvement in the scandal. Papandreou was cleared of all charges by the Supreme Court in 1992 (Koutsoukis,2006, p. 132).

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PASOK’s tenure and therefore were better reflected in the 1996 elections. In sum, this period begins with a political crisis and ends with a parliamentary crisis. 1996–2009: The Period of Stabilization MPs elected between 1996 and 2009 reflect the first elections (1996) in contemporary political history without the historical leaderships of PASOK and ND leading either party as Costas Simitis succeeds Andreas Papandreou in PASOK, after the latter’s death. During this period, PASOK wins the 1996 and 2000 elections and New Democracy those of 2004 and 2007. The two major political parties converge ideologically and politically around some core strategic issues (Europe, economy, state) whilst professionalization in campaigning has been fully adopted. Also, given that in times of crisis we witness profound changes in the composition of political elites (Putnam, 1976, p. 65), this is the longest period of parliamentary stability in the Third Republic, where the percentage of newcomers ranges approximately between 25 and 30% (Table 1.1). This pattern reflects the steady alteration in power of the two pillars of the old two-system, and the fact that each electoral change is accompanied by a steady influx of new MPs, who share seats with more experienced Parliamentarians. This period introduces some significant reforms that potentially can have a lasting impact on MPs profiles. The open selection of George Andreas Papandreou in 2004 is in line with developments on party organization that are often associated with the decline of parties (Cross & Pillet, 2015) and the effort to introduce more intra-party democracy (for an overview see Sandri & Seddone, 2021) and is an organizational milestone later followed by ND.7 Gender quotas, another milestone that may directly impact the representational aspect of Parliament are adopted first for Municipal Elections in 2001 and then for National elections in 2008 (see Pantelidou Maloutas, in this volume). Finally, the Kapodistrias plan (Hlepas & Getimis, 2010), an administrative reform that begun in 1994, merged Municipalities and turned the old Prefectures into Self-governing bodies, with Prefects and prefectural councils being elected by popular vote. This reform opened the way to 7 SYRIZA was the last of the major political actors to adopt this method, in the reelection of Alexis Tsipras in May 2022. However, during the time span covered by this book, only PASOK and ND had adopted an open method of leadership selection.

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new patterns of representation through different career paths between the national, the regional, and the local level. 2012–2015: The Period of the Economic Crisis The third political milestone is the Eurozone crisis and the collapse of the two-party system that, although evident in the events of the 2009– 2012 period, was documented in the double 2012 elections. The entry of new political forces in parliament, the extreme electoral volatility, and polarization are key in order to understand this period. The elections of 2012 have been ‘the first parliamentary competitions in which the crisis was at the epicenter of political debate’ (Verney & Bosco, 2013) with an abrupt break with the past in terms of parliamentary representation. In the June 2012 Legislature one in two MPs has entered Parliament in either one of the two elections of the year. The 2012 elections marked the fragmentation of the partisan field and the increased number of parliamentary parties as well as a major rupture with the cycle of stabilization of electoral behavior which has started after the 1993 election (Verney & Bosco, 2013, p. 417). The Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) gained 26.89% of votes in the elections, just 3% behind New Democracy, becoming the party of the official opposition for the first time. At the same time PASOK lost significant power and a splinter party from New Democracy (the Party of Independents GreeksANEL) was formed in 2012; the neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn (Chrysi Avgi) and a splinter party from SYRIZA (DIMAR) formed in 2010, enter the Greek Parliament. In January 2015, national elections were held in Greece due to the failure of the government to elect a new President of the Hellenic Republic. SYRIZA won the elections with 36% of the votes and 149 MPs—just two seats short of forming a majority government and entered into a coalition with ANEL. This is probably one of the most researched periods in terms of the descriptive representation of the parties, as discussed in the previous part. We do know that the crisis generation had some distinctive features, in terms of a more socially diverse profile (Kakepaki et al., 2018). Being one of the countries of the European periphery most severely hit during the great recession, the decline of its party system and the collapse of the old bipartyism (Voulgaris & Nicolacopoulos, 2014), the rise of populist and anti-system parties (Georgiadou, 2020; Vassilopoulou & Halikiopoulou, 2015) and the electoral rise of a radical left party (Mudde, 2017) have all been systematically examined.

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The 2019 Period of New Stabilization. Or, What Comes Next? Although the demarcation is not clear, the 2019 elections mark the symbolic end of the crisis and the return to ‘normality’ (Rori, 2020). ND wins the elections by a landslide and forms a single party government, whilst the campaign is for the first time in almost a decade not centered around the economy. The new bipartyism between ND and SYRIZA shows signs of consolidation, as the effective number of parties is reduced (Tsatsanis et al., 2020). At the same time, MPs’ turnover remains high (38%) whilst this is truly a Parliament of the twenty-first century, given that most of the MPs currently serving in it were elected after 2000. At the time of writing this book, on the one hand major crises (Covid-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine) are set to further challenge representation, either through the transfer of power to non-elected technocrats or to supranational entities, that are deemed better equipped to address them; on the other the digitalization of parties and candidate selection and the role of social media will bring changes to the profiles and career paths of those wishing to enter Parliament. No doubt, future research will assess those new challenges to representation, making this period open to interpretation as to the course that it will follow.

Methodological Considerations on Data Collection All chapters (unless otherwise stated) make use of an original dataset of all Greek MPs, available at the National Centre of Social Research (EKKE). The dataset ‘Members of the Greek Parliament (1989–2019)’ includes data on socio-demographic characteristics and political experience of all members of the Greek Parliament elected in the Parliamentary Periods from 1989 to 2019.8 Since all contributors have access to the same dataset this ensures a uniform methodological approach, avoiding the pitfalls of different measurements or different variable conceptualizations that often occur when dealing with various methods of data collection. The Members of the Greek Parliament (1989–2019) database is a census of the entire population of Greek MPs. It contains information on all MPs that occupied a parliamentary seat—even for a single day—at the Greek Parliament, in the fourteen national elections held between 1989 (the 5th 8 https://socioscope.gr/dataset/deputies.

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Table 1.2 Factors related to change and continuity in Parliament

The period of political crisis (1989–1993)

The period of stabilization (1996–2009)

The period of the economic crisis (2012–2015)

The period of the new normalization (2019–)

Change

Continuity

Historical consensus between Left and Right and first Coalition Government Political scandals High PMs turnover Deliberation of private TV Electoral Law (Proportional representation) Electoral law (reinforced proportional representation with a majority bonus system) Administrative reform (Kapodistrias) Gender Quotas ‘New Guard’ Leadership Party re-organization Professionalization of politics Political Convergence (e.g. entry in Eurozone) The rise of political expertise Collapse of the old party system Coalition Governments Administrative reform (Kallikratis) Rise of anti-system parties Peak in electoral volatility and dealignment Leadership change High MPs turnover Leadership change Official end of the bailout programs Digitalization of parties

Mass parties ‘Old-guard’ leadership Strong Bipartyism Political Polarization

Strong Bipartyism Weak pressure from minor challenger parties

Electoral law (reinforced proportional representation) Professionalization of political parties Importance of technocracy

Weak bipartyism Electoral law Importance of technocracy

Parliamentary Term) and 2019 (the 18th Parliamentary Term). Since all MPs with a registered term in Parliament are included, the cases for each Term surpass 300 to include all replacements that took place during each Term. At the time of writing, the database contains 1476 unique cases and 4373 entries. All biographical data were collected from sources such as the yearbooks published by the Hellenic Parliament, data from the Parliament’s website and party and personal websites of the candidates.

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The information extracted from the biographical data was coded into 32 variables,9 divided into two main groups: (i) socio-demographic variables, which are fixed entries of the database, since the information about the same person does not change over time (e.g. gender, year of birth, place of birth, education),10 and (ii) social and political experience variables which may take different values for the same person in another parliamentary term (e.g. the same person in a parliamentary term gets elected with party x and in another with party y). The selection of the variables that were included in the database followed the guidelines adopted by other similar works (Coller et al., 2014): A. Information from official sources. All CVs had to come from sources that could be verified in terms of their reliability and/or official status, such as the Hellenic Parliament, official websites of parties and/or candidates, and other special editions.11 B. Ability to retrieve information from an adequate number of CVs. For example, participation in various civil society organization could not be systematized since references varied considerably over time or across party lines. Therefore, information on candidates’ participation in several local, cultural associations and social movement participation, although often mentioned, was not easy to codify and was therefore omitted.12

9 For the way all variables were coded see the codebook here: https://socioscope.gr/ content/codebooks/Vouleutes_codebook_FINAL_EN.pdf. 10 There were a handful of cases where information did change over time in levels of education: some MPs entered Parliament with a university degree and in subsequent terms had obtained a higher educational level. Such cases account for a minuscule fraction of the entire population, therefore for consistency, education was treated as a fixed entry. 11 An exception was the Golden Dawn MPs: The specific nature of the party and

the secretive, near paramilitary structure of its party organization was evident by the fact that many MPs released no public information other than basic demographic and electoral variables. For that reason, the research team decided to include information from journalistic accounts. More on that on Chapter 7 of this volume. 12 An attempt by the authors to code such information for SYRIZA and ND for the 17th Parliamentary Term (2015–2019) revealed marked differences, both across party lines and across generations: younger SYRIZA MPs emphasized their ties with social movements with an emphasis on anti-globalization, the environment or human rights, whilst older MPs stressed their participation in resistance movements during the dictatorship. ND MPs tended to have ties with civil society through participation in local, sports, or professional associations (see Kakepaki, 2022).

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During data collection and coding, the research team had to deal with some problems in retrieving or verifying the information. Absence of CVs and/or missing information was one key issue to consider. Until 2007 the Greek Parliament issued Almanacs in printed or electronic form with the data of the deputies for each Parliamentary Term. From 2009 onward, print publications stop and the posting of CVs on the website of the Parliament begins. However, especially after 2012, there are many cases of MPs that did not submit a CV. This almost entirely applies to newcomers with flash parties created after 2012 and is even more widespread in the case of MPs from the Golden Dawn. Table 1.3 presents an overview of the available information and the main gaps in select variables. As a rule, the more established a party was in the Greek party system, the more likely it was for its candidates to have full CVs. Future updates of the database attempted to fill the gaps, but some remain. Furthermore, the CVs’ publication date and the period effect should be considered: as a rule, all information gathered for each Parliamentary Term came from CVs published either before each election or right at the beginning of each Term. The aim was to capture candidates’ profiles before entering Parliament. To a large extent that was possible from 1993 onward, however, for past Terms some CVs were later additions, since original editions could not be found. On the other hand, the post-crisis period in Greece generated a vivid anti-elite discourse. Parliamentary representatives were often portrayed not just as corrupt elites, but most importantly as professional politicians with little or no experience of the real world, secured into Parliament after long party careers. To address this critique, many aspirant MPs emphasized even more in their CVs their Table 1.3 Retrievable information by Party (select variables) N of unique Ids New Democracy PASOK SYRIZA KKE Golden Dawn

Year of Birth (%)

Occupation (%)

Education (%)

Place of Birth (%)

542

98.9

99.1

96.5

98.6

459 257 67 30

98.7 91.3 96.6 80.0

99.6 97.3 95.6 83.3

97.4 86.8 87.6 30.0

99.7 92.6 93.8 66.6

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work experience (especially in the private sector) or their educational qualifications, downplaying any party ties. Related to the above came one key methodological decision of the research team regarding the treatment (or not) of political positions as a profession. Although there are numerous cases of career politicians that clearly had a career either only inside the party or (and) in Parliament, nowhere in any CV such a thing is stated. There is a clear ‘pressure’ to present work experience outside politics, therefore coders accepted the occupation stated in the CVs. To that end, the biggest problems were faced in the Occupation and Education variables. Professions were sometimes stated with a single word and other times extensively. The research team first recorded verbatim the profession and then recoded professions using the ISCO 2008 classification of occupations. Whenever multiple occupations were reported, coders kept the profession that was listed first. Regarding the education variable, some MPs reported their studies in detail (in chronological order and level), whilst others listed subjects without a chronological order, educational level, or place of study. Where possible, more information was sought, and in line with the established practice, the higher degree was recorded. Although the research team assumed that absence of information indicates absence of a degree (as evident mostly in the Golden Dawn MPs) coders kept the ‘missing data’ label and did not assume the level of education.

Structure of the Book This book moves across two different but influential crises and examines the concept of transition as a result of not only of these crises, but also of party transformations (changes in leadership), international influences (the emergence of expertise in political capital) as well as of wider societal change (changes in educational capital and gender differences) and historical legacies of the country. Therefore, we approach change also as product of a slow modernization process rather than as a sign of a clear rupture with the past. Each chapter will approach the issues through the lens of ‘continuity’ and discontinuity’ in the Greek Parliament. Some authors will focus on what we identify as constant parameters of political representation whilst others will focus on what we propose to see as ‘discontinuities’ in political representation. We also propose to view changes under the light of recent challenges faced by elites (Verzichelli, 2018, pp. 586–588) such as the shifting of powers away from Parliaments,

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the changes in the selectorate of elites, and the anti-elitist discourse, factors that potentially can change how and most importantly who gets into Parliament. The first three chapters of the book discuss some of the constant parameters of representation in Greece considering change and continuity. Maro Pantelidou-Maloutas offers a critical approach on the constant gender disparity in Greek parliament, usually conceptualized as women’s ‘underrepresentation’. Her findings place gender disparity together with Greek political culture in the Greek context, in order to deal with issues of political representation in any patriarchal society and, thus, in a gendered democracy which is inherently based on social inequality and has its liberal and democratic components in perpetual conflict. Giorgos Bythimitris examines the occupational dynamics of the Greek parliament in tandem with the major shifts that the country’s class structure underwent within the last thirty years. His chapter provides an outline of the gaps in representation and the continuities between crisis and pre-crisis patterns. Fani Kountouri discusses the increasing percentages of journalists in Greek Parliament and questions whether the extent of career cross-over from journalism to politics in Greece is explained by the growing media’s influential role in contemporary democracies. Her aim is to identify patterns of political representation between different professions but also between journalists (levels of education, age, gender, parliamentary terms, party career, etc.) and present a typology of journalist’s career patterns. The next four chapters are single cases of the major political actors of Metapolitefsi: New Democracy, PASOK and SYRIZA, plus a chapter dedicated on the profile of far right parties. Manina Kakepaki presents the basic descriptive characteristics of all ND MPs across time. Dimensions such as the ideological nature of the party, the effect of the election of a new leader, and changes in party competition are considered in order to construct a typology of conservative MPs across time. Gerasimos Karoulas explores the main characteristics of PASOK’s MPs, paying attention to the dimensions that contributed to the formation of the party’s political personnel, e.g. intra-party organs, leadership, etc. The aim is to formulate specific research questions regarding PASOK’s parliamentary elites and its route toward Pasokification. Danai Koltsida examines SYRIZA’s transformation from a mainly protest party into a governing one, and the relation between the broader party transformative process and the composition and the role of its parliamentary elite. Constantinos Pierides examines the profile of MPs elected with far right and extreme

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right parties in the Greek Parliament in the last fifteen years in the first comprehensive study of their political personnel. Moving to the next two chapters, the aim is to go beyond the Greek Parliament. Nicos Souliotis, Nikos Klironomos and Gerasimos Karoulas explore the Executive and the role of Technocrats, drawing on the increased demand for work on Ministerial elites, especially after the increase in technocratic—or technocrat-led—governments throughout Europe. Finally, Yiannos Katsourides and Antrea Kosta compare the parliamentary political elites in Cyprus and Greece before and after the sweeping economic crisis that shocked the political and party systems in both countries. Since Greece and Cyprus share a number of historical and cultural characteristics (e.g. language, religion, etc.) and were both harshly hit by the economic crisis the authors expect to find similar effects on their systems of political representation. The concluding chapter by the editors attempts to integrate the findings and proposes a typology of representation in contemporary Greece.

References Best, H. & Cotta, M. (2000) (Eds.). Parliamentary representatives in Europe 1848–2000. Legislative recruitments and careers in eleven European countries. Oxford University Press. Best, H., Cromwell, V., Hausmann, C., & Rush, M. (2001). The transformation of legislative elites: The cases of Britain and Germany since the 1860s’. The Journal of Legislative Studies, 7 (3), 65–91. Best, H., & Higley, J. (Eds.). (2010). Democratic elitism: New theoretical and comparative perspectives. Brill. Beyme, K. V. (1996). Transition to democracy in Eastern Europe. Springer. Borchert, J., & Zeiss, J. (Eds.). (2003). The political class in advanced democracies: A comparative handbook. OUP Oxford. Carnes, N. (2013). White-collar government: The hidden role of class in economic policy making. University of Chicago Press. Coller, X., Santana, A., & Jaime, A. M. (2014). Problemas y soluciones para la construcción de bases de datos de políticos. Revista Española De Ciencia Política, 34, 169–198. Coller, X., Cordero, G., & Jaime Castillo, A. (Eds.). (2018). The selection of politicians in times of crisis. Routledge. Coller, X., & Sanchez-Ferrez, L. (Eds.). (2021). Politicians in hard times. Spanish and Southern European MPs facing citizens after the great recession. Palgrave.

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Cordero, G. & Coller, X. (Eds.). (2018). Democratizing candidate selection. New methods, old receipts? Palgrave Macmillan. Cotta, M., & Best, H. (2007). Democratic representation in Europe. Diversity, change and convergence. Oxford University Press. Cross, W., & Pilet, J. B. (Eds.). (2015). The politics of party leadership. A crossnational perspective. Oxford University Press. Crowther, W. E. & Matonyte, Ir. (2007). Parliamentary elites as a democratic thermometer: Estonia, Lithuania and Moldova compared. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 40, 281–299. Dancygier, R., Lindgren, K., Oskarsson, S., & Vernby, K. (2015). Why are immigrants underrepresented in politics? evidence from Sweden. American Political Science Review, 109(4), 703–724. https://doi.org/10.1017/S00030554150 00404 Dinas, E., Georgiadou, V., Konstantinidis, I., & Rori, L. (2016). From dusk to dawn: Local party organization and party success of right-wing extremism. Party Politics, 22(1), 80–92. Dinas, E. (2020). The electoral system. In K. Featherstone & D. A. Sotiropoulos (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of modern greek politics (pp. 203–218). Oxford University Press. Dretakis, M. (1991). The anatomy of the hellenic parliament, 1974–1990. Gutenberg. [in Greek]. François, A., & Grossman, E. (2015). How to define legislative turnover? The incidence of measures of renewal and levels of analysis. The Journal of Legislative Studies, 21(4), 457–475. Freire, A., Barragán, M., Coller, X., Lisi, M., & Tsatsanis, E. (2020). Political representation in Southern Europe and Latin America: Before and after the great recession and the commodity crisis. Routledge. Freire, A., Pedrazzani, A., Tsatsanis, E., Segatti, P. & Coller, X. (2021). LeftRight ideological congruence in Southern Europe. In X. Coller & L. SanchezFerrez (Eds.), Politicians in hard times. Spanish and Southern European MPs facing citizens after the great recession (pp. 357–382). Palgrave. Gaxie, D. (2018). Political and social backgrounds of political elites. In H. Best & J. Higley (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of political elites (pp. 489–506). Palgrave Macmillan. Georgiadou, V. (2020). The far right. In K. Featherstone & D. A. Sotiropoulos (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of modern greek politics (pp. 241–255). Oxford University Press. Guttsman, W. L. (1960). Social stratification and political elite. The British Journal of Sociology, 11(2), 137–150. https://doi.org/10.2307/587421 Harmel, R., & Janda, K. (1994). An integrated theory of party goals and party change. Journal of Theoretical Politics, 6(3), 259–287. https://doi.org/10. 1177/0951692894006003001

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Hlepas, N. K., & Getimis, P. (2011). Impacts of local government reforms in Greece: An interim assessment. Local Government Studies, 37 (5), 517–532. https://doi.org/10.1080/03003930.2011.604544 Kakepaki, M. (2015). Is there politics without professional politicians? Change and continuity in the profile of Greek MPs, [1996–2015]. In N. G. Georgarakis & N. Demertzis (Eds.), The political portrait of Greece. Crisis and the deconstruction of the Political (pp. 168–187). Gutenberg - EKKE [in Greek]. Kakepaki, M. (Ed.). (2016a). Political representation in contemporary Greece. Characteristics and profile of members of the Greek parliament 1996–2015. EKKE—Papazisis [in Greek]. Kakepaki, M. (2016b). The gender dimension of representation: Women as ‘a small minority’. In Kakepaki, M. (Ed). Political representation in contemporary Greece. Characteristics and profile of members of the Greek parliament 1996– 2015 (pp. 109–134). EKKE—Papazisis [in Greek]. Kakepaki, M. & Karayiannis Y. (2016). Professional politicians and political professions at the Greek Parliament. In Kakepaki, M. (Ed). Political representation in contemporary Greece. Characteristics and profile of members of the Greek parliament 1996–2015 (pp. 85–108). EKKE—Papazisis [in Greek]. Kakepaki, M. (2018). New actors, old practices? Candidate selection and recruitment patterns in Greece. In X. Coller, G. Cordero, & A. Jaime-Castillo (Eds.), The selection of politicians in times of crises (pp. 98–114). Routledge. Kakepaki, M., Kountouri, F., Verzicheli, L., & Coller, X. (2018). The sociopolitical profile of parliamentary representatives in Greece, Italy and Spain before and after the ‘Eurocrisis’: A comparative empirical assessment. In X. Coller & G. Cordero (Eds.), Democratizing candidate selection in times of crisis: New methods, old receipts (pp. 175–200). Palgrave. Kakepaki, M. & Karayiannis Y. (2021). Ticket to Brussels. One-way or return? Profiles and typology of Greek MEPs, 1981–2019. Greek Review of Social Research 157 , 157–181. https://doi.org/10.12681/grsr.27621 Kakepaki, M. (2022). Changes in candidate selection and the sociodemographic profile of Greek MPs. Evidence from the 2019 general elections. Frontiers in Political Science. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2021.777298 Karoulas, G. (2019). Political tradition and political parties in the third Greek republic: Emerging, reproduction and evolution of nepotism in the period 1989–2012. In Y. Karayiannis, & K. Kanellopoulos (Eds.), From metapolitefsi to crisis: Aspects and prospects of the third Greek republic (pp. 107–133). Hellenic Political Science Association [in Greek]. Karoulas, K. (2018). PASOK’s political elites in the third hellenic republic: In between the party, state and society? In V. Assimakopoulos & C. Tassis (Eds.) PASOK 1974–2018. Political organization, ideological repositioning, governmental policies (pp.107–133). Gutenberg [in Greek].

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Karras, I. (1977). A first acquaintance with today’s “unknown” PASOK. Anti, 89, 14–24. [In Greek]. Karras, I. (1981). 1964-1981. Continuity and change. Anti, 193: 12–21 [In Greek]. Katz, R., & Mair, P. (1995). Changing models of party organization and party democracy: The emergence of cartel party. Party Politics, 1(1), 5–18. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1354068895001001001 Kitschelt, H. (2000). Citizens, politicians, and party cartellization: Political representation and state failure in post-industrial democracies. European Journal of Political Research, 37 (2), 149–179. Koltsida, D. (2019). The multiple facets of Left’s “First time”: SYRIZA’s political personnel (2012–2018). In Y. Balampanidis (Ed.) SYRIZA. A party in progress. From protest to governance (pp. 174–201). Themelio [in Greek]. Kosmopoulos, D. (2021). Impact of intra-party democracy on patterns of political career within the pan-hellenic socialist movement (PASOK) in Greece, 2004–2009. In G. Sandri, & A. Seddone (Eds). New paths for selecting political elites. Investigating the impact of inclusive candidate and party leader selection methods (pp. 101–117). Routledge. Kountouri, F. (2016). Dimensions of the cultural and political capital of the Greek MP’s. Exploring continuities and discontinuities. In M. Kakepaki (Ed.). Political representation in contemporary Greece. Characteristics and profile of members of the Greek parliament 1996–2015 (pp. 45–84). EKKE – Papazisis [in Greek]. Kountouri F. (2018). Patterns of renewal and continuity in parliamentary elites. The Greek MPs from 1996 to 2015. The Journal of Legislative Studies, 244, 568–586. https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2018.154 7947. Koutsoukis, K. (1978). Socioeconomic change and cabinet composition in Greece: 1946–1974. The Greek Review of Social Research, 32, 74–79. https:// doi.org/10.12681/grsr.446 [In Greek]. Koutsoukis, K. (1982). Political leadership in modern Greece. Athena Publishing Co. Koutsoukis, K. (2006). Political scandals and crisis management in Greece, 1821– 2001. In J. Garrard and J. L. Newell. Scandals in past and contemporary politics (pp. 121–136). Manchester University Press. Legg, R. K. (1969). Politics in modern Greece. Stanford University Press. Lyrintzis, C. (1984). Political parties in post-junta Greece: A case of “bureaucratic clientelism”? West European Politics, 7 (2), 99–118. Lyrintzis, C. (1991) The end of “tzakia”. Society and politics in 19th century Achaia. Themelio [in Greek]. Lyrintzis, C. (2005). The changing party system. Stable democracy, contested “modernization”. West European Politics,28(2), 242–259.

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Marangudakis, M. (2019). Clientelistic social structures and cultural orientations. In M. Marangudakis. The Greek crisis and its cultural origins (pp. 81–108). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13589-8_3 Matland, R., & Studlar, D. (2004). Determinants of legislative turnover: A cross national analysis. British Journal of Political Science, 34, 87–108. Metaxas, A.I.-D. (1981). Biosocial and cultural mapping of the Parliament, 1964–1974–1977. Review of Political Research, 1(1), 11–56. [in Greek]. Mudde, C. (2017). SYRIZA. Palgrave Macmillan. Nezi, R., Sotiropoulos, A. D., & Toka, P. (2010). Attitudes of Greek parliamentarians towards European and national identity, representation, and scope of governance. South European Society and Politics, 15(1), 79–96. https://doi. org/10.1080/13608746.2010.496930 Nicolacopoulos, E. (2015). Continuities and ruptures. The ambiguous term Metapolitefsi. In M. Avgeridis, E. Gazi, & K. Kornetis (Eds) Metapolitefsi. Greece in the brink of two centuries (pp. 429–432). Themelio. [in Greek]. Nikitiadis, G. (2014). ‘Black’ and ‘bitten’. Preference vote or list? Psichogios. [in Greek]. Norris, P. (Ed). (1997). Passages to power: Legislative recruitment in advanced democracies. Cambridge University Press. Pantelidou Maloutas, M. (2007). Half a century of women’s vote, half a century of women in parliament. The hellenic parliament foundation for parliamentarism and democracy. [in Greek]. Pappas, T. S. (2009). Patrons against partisans. Party Politics, 15(3), 315–334. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068809102247 Patrikios, S., & Chatzikonstantinou, M. (2014). Dynastic politics: Family ties in the Greek parliament, 2000–2012. South European Society and Politics, 20(1), 93–111. https://doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2014.942989] Patzelt, W. J. (1999). Recruitment and retention in western European parliaments. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 24(2), 239–279. Putman, R. D. (1976). The comparative study of political elites. Prentice-Hall. Parry, G. (2005). Political elites, ECPR Press. Paxton, P. & M. Hughes (2017). Women, politics, and power: A global perspective. Sage. Pitkin, H. F. (1967). The concept of representation. University of California Press. Pridham, G., & Verney, S. (1991). The coalitions of 1989–1990 in Greece: Interparty relations and democratic consolidation. West European Politics, 14(4), 42–69. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402389108424876 Rohrschneider, R., & Thomassen, J. (Eds). (2020). The Oxford handbook of political representation in liberal democracies. Rori, L. (2016). The 2015 Greek parliamentary elections: From great expectations to no expectations. West European Politics, 39(6), 1323–1343. https:// doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2016.1171577

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Rori, L. (2020). The 2019 Greek parliamentary election: Retour à la normale. West European Politics, 43(4), 1023–1037. https://doi.org/10.1080/014 02382.2019.1696608 Sotiropoulos, D. A., & Bourikos, D. (2002). Ministerial elites in Greece, 1843– 2001: Asynthesis of old sources and new data. South European Society and Politics, 7 (2), 153–204. Sotiropoulos, D. A. (2020). In the eye of the Hurricane: Greece. In L. Morlino, & C. Sottilotta (Eds.), The politics of the eurozone crisis in Southern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03024471-2_4 Sotiropoulos, D. A. (2019). Political party–interest group linkages in Greece before and after the onset of the economic crisis, Mediterranean Politics, 24 (5), 605–625. https://doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2018.1428149 Spourdalakis, M. (1996). PASOK’S second chance. Mediterranean Politics, 1(3), 320–336. https://doi.org/10.1080/13629399608414591 Teperoglou, E., Andreadis, I., & Chadjipadelis, T. (2020). The study of political representation in Greece: Towards new patterns following the economic crisis? In A. Freire, M. Barragán, X. Coller, M. Lisi, & E. Tsatsanis (Eds.), Political representation in Southern Europe and Latin America: Before and after the great recession and the commodity crisis (pp. 34–49). Routledge. Tsatsanis, E. (2018). The swift unravelling: Party system change and deinstitutionalization in Greece during the crisis. In M. Lisi (Ed.), Party system change, the European crisis and the state of democracy (pp. 115–136). Routledge. Tsatsanis, E. & Kakepaki, M. (2021). ‘Are challengers better representatives? Substantive representation in Greece in the aftermath of the Economic Crisis’. In X. Coller & L. Sánchez Ferrer (Eds.) Politicians in hard times. Facing citizens after the great recession in Spain and Southern Europe (pp. 335–356). Palgrave. Tsirbas, Y. (2020). The Party system. In K. Featherstone, & D. A. Sotiropoulos (Eds.), The oxford handbook of modern Greek politics (pp. 219–238). Oxford University Press. Tziovaras, G. & Chiotis, V. (2007). The political map of metapolitefsi 1974–2004. Livanis [in Greek]. Vassilopoulou, S. & Halikiopoulou, D. (2015). The golden dawn’s ‘nationalist solution’. Explaining the rise of the far right in Greece. Palgrave Macmillan. Verney, S., & Bosco, A. (2013). Living parallel lives: Italy and Greece in an age of austerity. South European Society and Politics, 18(4), 397–426.

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CHAPTER 2

Gender, Representation, and the Politcs of Exclusion: Or, Who Represents, Who Is Represented, What Is at Stake? Maro Pantelidou Maloutas

Introduction Speaking of political representation in reference to gender opens an ethico-political discussion on the concept itself and its gendered aspect, and on how representation can work in an unequal society. Despite a growing variation in forms of political representation, the question whether “the subalterns can have a voice”, persists (Ranciere, 2012; Spivak, 1994) in respect to all social inferiors. As for gender, the main question refers to whether women lack in social power because they are politically excluded, or, if they are deficient in political representation because they live in conditions of structural inequality. It is imperative

M. Pantelidou Maloutas (B) Professor Emerita of Political Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Kakepaki and F. Kountouri (eds.), Parliamentary Elites in Transition, Reform and Transition in the Mediterranean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11694-0_2

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to clarify the causal direction of this relation, as it determines different policies. There are many theories of representation (see Mansbridge, 2003; Przeworski et al., 1999; Phillips 1993, 1995), with the distinction between descriptive and symbolic generally accepted, referring to different ways representatives are connected to the represented. Pitkin (1967), having shaped contemporary understanding of political representation, identifies four views, specifying that substantive representation occurs when the representatives are “acting for” the interests of the represented; without clarifying how “objective” interests are defined. Today’s problematique is mainly based on representation being de facto incapable to reflect the needs/interests of all, while it is also noted that there are aspects in the relationship represented–representatives, that should be explored more (Castiglione & Pollak, 2018). An encyclopaedia entry would qualify political representation as the activity of making citizens’ voices, opinions, and perspectives “present” in public policy.1 A definition too simple to be analytically useful, needing a clarification on whether we refer to a delegate, or trustee perception. Usually, certainly in the Greek case, the Constitution implies both models never clearly defined, as if following Pitkin (1967): Representatives must act in ways “that safeguard the capacity of the represented to authorize and to hold their representatives accountable”2 but also, retain the capacity to act independently. A lack of clarity making the issue of why unequal descriptive representation has repercussions for the substantive representation of women more complicated. While there are big variations in gender equality scores among EU countries, in 20213 Sweden at the top obtains 83.9 points, and Greece with 52.6, is placed at the bottom. As for politics, a typical area of exclusion, women’s low visibility forms a structural element of Greek political culture, placing this country at the lower positions in the EU.4 Despite variations in electoral systems, institutional provisions, types of welfare, level of economic development, etc., in many EU countries women are 1 The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/politicalrepresentation/. 2 Ibid. 3 See https://eige.europa.eu/gender-equality-index. 4 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2021/689345/EPRS_B RI(2021)689345_EN.pdf .

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still “underrepresented” in legislatures. In a “gendered democracy” (on this point see Pantelidou Maloutas, 2006; Pateman 1988, 1989; Phillips, 1991) one inherently based on gender inequality, liberal and democratic components are in perpetual conflict, with women expectantly underrepresented in political elites, the extend depending on the specific gender regime. Beyond differences in the obstacles confronted by women politicians, there are specific constant factors. One is the electoral system, with proportional representation more women-friendly than majority systems. EU data, especially older ones show5 a strong correlation between the number of women elected and the type of electoral system. Almost seventy years after obtaining full political rights, Greek women’s minority status in political representation with haltingly increasing numbers, show that there is something wrong in the functioning of democracy, while not enough is done to remedy it. The latter by itself undermines democracy. Following Bourdieu (Wacquant, 2005, p. 21), democracy is best conceived as “a never-ending effort to make social relations less arbitrary, institutions less unjust, distribution of resources less imbalanced”. Judging by women’s progression in the Greek Parliament, not enough is done for democracy to approach its basic requirements. This chapter deals with what is usually conceptualised as women’s underrepresentation based on the Greek case, which presents a picture of major gender discrepancies. It focuses exclusively on political representation, in legislature. It also proposes references to the cultural and institutional environment that determine the continuation of the disparity, with women’s descriptive representation in the Parliament still falling below 25%. Which makes the continuity/discontinuity approach to gender in political representation, rather lacking in suspense in the Greek case. Intending to investigate what the latter has to offer to the wider discussion, the chapter attempts a dialogue with representation theory and feminist theory, refusing particularistic interpretations of Greece, as a European exception. On the contrary, it wishes to underline representation issues within a European gender regime more traditional than others. The coexistence of patriarchal organisation with liberal democracy has representation as its main victim, with negative liberty never enough in unequal conditions, even less so in conditions of profound inequality.

5 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/workingpapers/femm/w10/2_en.htm.

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And tensions created concerning the relation of descriptive to substantive representation of gendered subjects, not profitable to women nor to democracy.

The Issue Studying women legislators offers important points towards answering the question how representative are our representatives, the answer being, very little. The higher the prestige of an institution, it is so much more difficult for social inferiors to attain it (Putnam, 1976). Middle and higher social strata abound in parliaments, with lawyers and medical doctors forming a notable percentage in the Greek Parliament (Kakepaki & Karayiannis, 2016). Largely men, obviously. As for socially marginalised groups, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ persons, women with disabilities, all invisible in political representation. If women’s gender was not conceptualised and lived as social inferiority, we would expect approximatively equal numbers of women and men in political decision-making, with women’s deficiency in politics being one expression among many, reflecting their lower social status; symptom of a wider social problem, not identified as such when the diagnosis is limited to their underrepresentation. The discussion on institutional obstacles for women’s political advancement centred on electoral systems, lists and the preferential vote, constituencies’ size, etc., is indeed important. But it confronts technical problems. Focusing on them insinuates that presence, per se, is what matters, which opens the discussion of whose presence, why presence matters in representation within a profoundly unequal society. As for gender, the question needs to address how to articulate the necessity of women’s presence attesting less exclusion, without legitimating essentialist perceptions that serve only a liberal project for equal rights, against legal exclusion. The pressing demands for more women in parliament seem occasionally to confront the disillusionment, always inherent in the democratic project (Bobbio, 1984), by a (revised) liberal solution which, by definition, cannot contribute to its substantial confrontation. Adversely women’s equal presence in parliaments as expression of their de facto equal social status, is a democratic claim. As is any claim against exclusion based on inequality, it cannot be substantially dealt with by just a larger number of the excluded. Class inequality is not confronted necessarily by an eventual larger number of labour-workers in parliaments. What matters

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in politics is consciousness (class, gender, etc.) and rejecting inequality. Which means that ideology is decisive. The issue to be investigated thus presents itself as twofold: On one hand, which factors enable women’s wider presence/access to political decision-making? What does the study of political/electoral systems with diminishing exclusions, tell us? And on the other, what do we know about whether women’s larger voice/presence in decision-making result in greater gender equality?6 Furthermore, what does (the Greek) context tell us about prescribed policies? Is there one recipe for all? Or every specific gender regime determines the outcome of standard solutions to women’s deficient political presence? While there are strong voices in favour of the connection of descriptive to substantial representation, focusing on agenda setting, promoting women’s interests, etc., the connection must be further investigated, focusing not only on presence/voice, but on their quality too: How are the representatives related to the represented? Are they accountable for their choices and how? (Childs & Lovenduski, 2013, pp. 20–21). What about further legitimating the idea that women have different interests/needs from men, and aren’t these reduced to women’s traditional roles? Obviously, this is not what feminists strive for, with politically naïve and theoretically restrictive (“women’s interests”) claims ignoring intersectionality, unable to substantially serve gender equality. The constant gender disparity is a characteristic of the Parliament since the first woman was elected in 1953. However, despite progress—after 50 years of less than 10% women, it took less than 10 years to double the percentage (Kakepaki, 2016), women’s presence seems always an exception, creating questions from how to call them or what they should wear, to more important ones with theoretical connotations: Who do women elected represent ? Do they represent “the people” or “the nation” according to the Constitution, or women and their “interests” ? The latter usually insinuated in the demand for “more women in parliament”, bypasses any discussion on the absence of authorisation to speak in their name or accountability, showing a confusion among various meaning of representation. It creates also an aporia concerning where lies the claim that women speak on women’s behalf, when men MPs are not considered to speak exclusively for men. A confusion and an aporia never acknowledged, 6 See Domingo et al. (2015), who consider advances in gender equality as the outcome of political work, underestimating change in social structures.

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apparent from Right to Left; further fuelled by the institution of gender quotas in electoral lists, largely framed in this spirit. Questions regarding “who do women represent”, or how descriptive representation can be (considered to be) translated into substantive, having an indirect link to gender identity politics, and to the theoretical debate targeting the deconstruction of essentialist identities (Butler, 1990; Flax, 1990), are never confronted as such in Greek politics. Where it is usually insinuated, that women are indeed elected to represent women in terms of substantive representation. Is it never stipulated that descriptive representation is important per se, without it being considered as substantive also.While the thesis about women representing their social category is supported by the framing of gender quotas and even more “parity” in decision-making, it never disputes that men MPs represent “the people”. Men’s “universality” never questioned next to women’s particularity (Okin, 1979) even after women acquired full political rights, is due to how universality is conceptualised, forming a legacy within western political thought (Young, 1990). Women legislators in Greece are still “a small minority”, (below 25%), according to the “master trajectory of women’s political inclusion” proposed by Dahlerup and Leyenaar (2013), who refer to a classification of “old democracies”. Evidently Greece is not an “old democracy”: It does not have a long tradition of democratic practices, nor a highly developed socio-economic structure, women’s suffrage was not established at the beginning of the twentieth century. Greece even embodies all the opposite characteristics that make Sweden champion in “the challenge of male dominance” in politics. In Dahlerup and Leyenaar (2013), the Swedish case is described as having a strong tradition of group representation, a history of left party governance, a proportional representation electoral system, and uninterrupted (almost) universal suffrage since 1921. Furthermore, radical feminists and activists within political parties have been successful in advancing women in public office. Also, there are cross-party commitments to women’s political inclusion, something that failed in Greece every time it was attempted. This comparison forms a shortcut, in view of painting the portrait of a society and a polity that lacks all prerequisites for seriously challenging the male order in politics. Politically, institutionally, and mainly, socially. Also, if parties of the Left tend to be more women-friendly and inclusive in this country too, the first government of the Left was established in 2015, with Left parties a small minority until 2012.

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What we have, is a country reluctantly accepting the norm of women’s political inclusion as a sign of modernization/Europeanization, not as a necessary correction of a profound social injustice. The type of atmosphere and discourse that accompanied the attribution of women’s political rights in 1952, modernised of course, still prevails: Women were called upon by the Ministry of the Interior to “bring into politics the sweetest and gentleness of the Greek woman” (Pantelidou Maloutas 2007, p. 46), while it was implied that even Turkish women have political rights, while Greece, having entered the UN, was obliged to keep up. If the history of women’s exclusion and then minority status in politics, provoke the question of why it still exists, they also, give rise to an investigation of why this is a problem, in terms of representation. Concerning the why of its existence, the answer is easier, and we tried to confront it above based on negative liberty never being enough within conditions of social inequality. Even if institutional barriers are lifted, cultural, social, and symbolic barriers still exist (Dahlerup, 2013), while for substantial social barriers to be lifted, a radical social change with a feminist twist is presupposed. The question of why this is a problem is more challenging. Does it matter who does the “representing”? Especially when we know that not all women (social category) are feminists (political category)? Isn’t representation, by definition, a problematic notion in societies with deep social inequalities, where the ideological hegemony of the dominants influences how the subalterns perceive themselves and their interests? A spontaneous reaction could be that if women are deficient in presence, they are also in the substantive representation of their social category: Their experience/needs and interests are silenced, as is well documented in policy reports in favour of quotas. However, other arguments temper and problematise the above (Domingo & Holmes, 2015). Women parliamentarians primarily belong to political parties with various attitudes towards women’s demands. In more traditional societies to be characterised as a feminist may seem to undermine party loyalty which could obstruct political carriers in the Right. In Greece inter-party women’s cooperation on issues concerning women is extremely difficult, with the political affiliations weighting more than gender in policy formation. Furthermore, speaking of women’s interests/experience/needs, as if they are common/unchangeable, a traditional/essentialist perception is further legitimised. What is a “woman”, beyond the conditions of gender inferiority that she lives in? Asks Varikas (2017). Indeed, the reference

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to “women’s voice” risks covering their diverse identities implying the “eternal woman”. Such a perception is prominent within Greek politics and results in “equality policies” that usually signify measures for women to support them in the exercise of their traditional roles. Not to challenge or undermine them. Given the above, it must be considered that even in more genderequal societies unpaid/undervalued care work is always more in women’s hands.7 So, issues of welfare are more within their expertise and actual needs; with more descriptive representation of women beneficial for the substantive representation of welfare demands. So, while the descriptive underrepresentation of women is primarily an issue of exclusion/discrimination—with the fight against it having to target structural inequalities to be substantial—, more women in parliament permit more concerns about care to be (potentially) voiced. Indeed, with correct framing, not legitimising a sexist perception of women’s abilities,the bigger the variety of social experience/voice is certainly the better, widening the scope of representation while fighting exclusion. Another point refers to the fact that the quantity of women elected, eventual patterns, continuities, and changes, must be investigated in conjunction to how women as a social category vote. The underlying question being whether more women are elected where women’s votes go more in their favour (a fact not necessarily verified), or if the voter’s gender is irrelevant. Does it matter, and why (accountability?), if more women than men vote in favour of women candidates through preferential vote? We do not possess valid data on the above. While women’s exclusion appears diminished in many fields in Greece today,—less in politics than elsewhere—gender inequality persists in everyday life,8 and is often ideologically legitimated. A coexistence of diminishing exclusion with the persistence of inequality (Michaels, 2008), which is not a Greek particularity. There is indeed an ambivalent relation between promoting diversity and partial inclusion of a few, with the egalitarian project, when rights are founded on essentialised differences (Maloutas, 2021). While, when inequality seems no longer produced by 7 Regardless of socioeconomic status, women perform more than 75% of unpaid care work. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/womens-unpaid-care-work-everyt hing-to-know/. 8 https://eige.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/20203340_mhag20006enn_ 002.pdf.

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discrimination, it gets legitimated (Michaels, 2008). “Women’s difference” is so deeply entrenched within Greek culture, that, at best, pro-women measures to support them are expected, rather than policies to abolish gendered roles. Issues of exclusion are easier thus for policy intervention (even in “boys clubs”, such as politics), if the basic division of gender roles and power is not disturbed. Indeed, anything perceived as involving redistribution of power and resources is met with strong resistance, as was the case when quotas were initially applied to the lists for local elections. “Small adjustments”, made quotas almost “harmless”, and thus, acceptable. It took fifty years of political rights for women to surpass a presence of 10% in Greek Parliament, while the highest point was reached in September 2015, resulting in a Parliament of 76,8% men and 23,2% women. Less than ¼ of MPs are women in the Parliament, still. However, since March 2020, Greece has for the first time a woman President of the Republic; a highly respected former judge. Her candidacy was proposed by the Greek PM, who, while promoting it undermined it at the same time, by stressing that it was an “audacious candidate proposal”! In fact, promoted to counter-balance former sexist “faux pas” by the same PM,9 it confirmed the quasi-decorative role of the President, prescribed by the Constitution. Apart from the framing of gender policy as an issue of modernisation/Europeanisation of Greece, gender policy is steadily framed as targeting equality between two distinct entities that dichotomously diverge, having different roles with an underlying reference to nature. Political claims refer to supporting women in their roles, lifting barriers for capable/exceptional women, without challenging men’s supremacy, nor denying “women’s difference”. Women’s divergence from universal citizenship and their “particularity”, profoundly accepted, as an axiom, determines the third main framing, which refers to “the representation of the people by the elected MP’s”, according to the Constitution, with MPs perceived as men. The representation of women is expected via women MPs. Gender policy is thus perceived as a benevolent gesture of approval of the idea that, “although we are different, in a modern society we must

9 As in a BBC interview, when questioned about why they were only two women in his government, he argued that not many women are “interested in stepping into politics”, to be contested ironically by the interviewer.

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have equal rights”. The above derive from the way gender is conceptualised, while determining the degree to which gender equality policies can be disruptive or just legitimating the existing gender order. Research shows indeed, that beyond certain parts of the Left and radical feminists, the dominant/encompassing perception of gender in Greece refers to a radically dichotomous natural/biological reality of difference, translated into different roles (Pantelidou Maloutas, 2005). Since the framing of gender inequality as a policy issue largely depends on the conceptualisation of gender, the latter forms the decisive factor under differences in socio-political cultures, welfare state’s development and each country’s history of feminism, which all determine national divergences in the framing and outcomes of gender policies (Verloo & Pantelidou Maloutas, 2005 ). Research on gender framing in different countries (Verloo, 2005; Verloo & Pantelidou Maloutas, 2005), helps us to see culture’s importance for politics, and how contextualising the issue creates better answers. Dominant gender frames in Greece do not facilitate effective gender policy by not approaching gender differences as a social construct obstructing democratic coexistence. However, only gender policies, targeting the disruption of gender roles in the private sphere supported by naturalistic views of the family, would “free” women, augmenting their participation in the public sphere (Okin, 1979).

The Situation: Women in Political Representation10 a. Up to 1989 Before acquiring formal political rights, dynamically claimed by interwar feminists, there was a long tradition of women’s participation in national liberation, resistance in war, and occupation. Women had even voted in general elections in the liberated part of Greece, in 1944, and five women were elected “national councillors”, in onerous conditions. However, women in Greece were late in obtaining full political rights (1952) voting for the first time in general elections in 1956. At a local by-election in 10 Data in this section come from Pantelidou Maloutas (2006) as well as from the socioscope dataset.

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1953, the first woman MP was elected. Until the dictatorship (1967) in five general elections plus several local by-elections only 13 times was a woman elected, with a maximum of four women coexisting in a Parliament of 300. In total, only eight women succeeded in becoming MPs, five of which belonged to the Left, two to the Right, and one to the Centre. Out of the eight, four were widows and two wives of politicians (Pantelidou Maloutas, 2007), establishing a tradition of “widows and wives” in parliament. The first elections after the fall of the dictatorship brought seven women MPs of which four belonged to Nea Dimokratia (New Democracy—ND) (Right) one to the Centre, one to PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement-Panellinio Sosialistiko Kinima), and one to the Left. This meagre 2.6% comprised mostly women of political families, a wellknown actress, and an important lady of the press, confirming the conventional pattern for women in politics. More women entered the Parliament in 1977, raising the percentage to 3.7%: Again, four for the Right, but this time five from PASOK and two from the Left. Of the latter, one was a well-known figure of the student’s resistance against the dictatorship, who was to play a leading role in the affairs of the Left in the early 90s as party leader. 1981 set a pattern for three consecutive elections with thirteen women in Parliament (4.3%). In 1981, the year of the “allaghi”, i.e. PASOK’s victory, and again in 1985, the year of women’s surpassing men in the socialist vote, eight women were elected under PASOK’s banner, along with three from the Right (ND) and two from the Left in 1981, and four and one, respectively, in 1985. However, the cultural and institutional changes brought by PASOK during the 1980s had no important influence on the number of women elected. Even more so, since, while in 1981 and 1985, more than half (8) of the women elected (13), belong to the apparently women-friendly PASOK, in June 1989 the thirteen women MPs elected count among them only four from PASOK, (still strongly supported by women voters), against seven from ND and two from the Left. In a losing PASOK the first to go are its women representatives, contrary to its women voters.

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b. The last decade of the twentieth century and after In November 1989, twenty women MPs were elected, marking important progress, but for a very short session, since in April 1990 new elections took place. In November 1989, for the first time, the ecological movement is represented in Parliament, and it is via a woman MP. Also, an important female political figure of the Right appears for the first time, taking the seat of her late husband, assassinated by terrorists. One of the ten women MPs under the ND banner, she managed to obtain more votes than her husband in the past. Despite a tradition of “political widows” in the Greek Parliament, she has proved to be much more than that,11 and was to play a central role in politics. April 1990 election brought sixteen women in Parliament, a meagre 5.3% that grew to 6% in 1993, when eighteen women were elected. The death of Melina Merkouri, MP since 1977 and Minister of Culture in every PASOK government, rendered the number to seventeen, until in 1995 it became nineteen (after the winning of a disputed seat and of an evacuated one by two women): Eight from the governing PASOK, eight from ND, two from Political Spring (Politiki Anoixi) (Right) and one from the traditional Left. It is interesting to note that these MPs included three university professors, all jurists, plus four lawyers, two philologists, one architect and an actress. After the 1996 elections there were again 19 women (6.3%): Seven belonged to PASOK, six to ND, three to Synaspismos, two to KKE (Communist Party of Greece) and one to DIKKIFive of them were elected for the first time in the Greek Parliament. An important increase was noted in the 2000 election, when thirty-one women appeared to have gained seats. After the annulment of five by the courts for technicalities, finally twenty-six women became MPs: twelve from PASOK that took the elections, ten from ND, two from KKE and two from Synaspismos Twelve women were elected for the first time. Thus, in 50 years of political rights only 79 women became MPs in Greece, against hundreds of men. Two of them were heads of Left parties. The 2004 general election, the first to take place after quotas were applied for local elections marked a breakthrough, maybe connected to the public discourse focused on women representatives, albeit local. 11 And more than her father’s daughter (PM Konstantinos Mitsotakis) and, of course, her brother’s sister (PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis). The fact that she is the mother of the mayor of Athens, epitomises the role of “political families” in Greek politics.

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Thirty-eight women were elected, 12,7%, soon to become thirty-nine, after a woman MP filled an emptied seat: Eighteen from PASOK, sixteen from ND (soon to become seventeen), three from KKE, and one from Synaspismos. In November 2005 women MPs became 40, after a replacement. It was the biggest descriptive representation of women in the Greek parliament, till then. Fourteen women MPs were elected for the first time, while more than half of the total number of women elected via a preferential vote (36 with four through closed list), were elected in the Athens-Piraeus area and in Thessaloniki. Also, the first woman Speaker in Parliament was elected in 2004. At the 2004 election, the percentage of women to men elected per party is clearly co-related to the position of the party on the Left/Right scale: The KKE, has 25% women MP (3 and then 4 out of 12), Synaspismos, with 1 out of 6, has 16,7%, PASOK, 15,8% (18 out of 114) and the Right ND, 9,8%, (16 out of 163. The Left’s better performance is steadily attested in the respective bibliography (Lovenduski & Norris, 1993; Dahlerup, 2007); however, this clearly analogous progression in 2004 is impressive. It is also notable that, this time, in a losing PASOK, the women elected were more numerous than in 2000, in a winning PASOK. The fact that these 18 women were well-known and established in their party, certainly played a role. The 2007 elections marked the increase of women’s percentage in Parliament to 16,1%, and for the first time, to 21,1%, among the newly elected. A total of 48 women were elected, soon to become 50. The best proportion of women was noted in KKE, who had 8 women out of 25 MPs, and the worst, among important political players, in ND winning with 21 women out of 154 MPs. The extreme Right party LAOS (Popular Orthodox Rally –Laikos Orthodoxos Synagermos)had one woman, while 21 women were elected under PASOK out of 106, and 3 out of 15 under SYRIZA. While women were elected at 17,3% at the 2009 early elections, their percentage among the first timers climbed to 31,9%, marking the biggest divergence ever between the total and among the first timers, indicating a tendency not necessarily to be confirmed and in part due to Law 3636/2008, legislating gender quotas of 1/3 were applied for the first

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time.12 However, the way they were instituted—the percentage of candidates in the preferential lists calculated for the whole of the country—, undermined their having any important positive effect. Because in areas like Athens where many women were elected, there would be no significant change, while in semi-rural/rural areas women would still be elected much less than 1/3. Thus 52 women were elected in a parliament of 300, showing a percentage still below the EU average of the time (24%). They contained 34 women from PASOK, out of the 160 seats that permitted its return to government, 10 from ND out of 91 seats while the party fell to its “historical lowest” since 1951, 5 from KKE, 2 from SYRIZA and 1 from LAOS (extreme Right). The winner of the 2009 election, PM George Papandreou, stepped down in 2011, allowing the formation of a provisional/coalition government to take Greece out of the political deadlock caused by its depthcrisis, which was to provoke important political consequences. The new government, a coalition of PASOK, ND and LAOS, following the tradition of coalition governments in Greece, had a minimal female presence of one Minister. The “crisis elections” of 2012 followed in May and June, after a period of intense confrontational politics that mobilised large numbers,—marked by the “squares movement” in 2011— giving rise to what was called “an electoral earthquake”, when only one out of ten voters, voted for the same party as in 2009 (Voulgaris & Nicolacopoulos, 2014), marking an unprecedented electoral volatility. In this climate 56 women were elected in May, their biggest percentage in the party group of SYRIZA (17 women out of 52), and very small percentages among the bigger parties with 4 women out of 41 in PASOK, and 12 out of 108 in ND. KKE had 7 women elected out of 16, DEMAR (Democratic Left- Dimokratiki Aristera) (Left) 6 out of 19, and ANEL (Independent Greeks-Anexartitoi Ellines (Right) 9 out of 33. Golden Dawn (Chrysi Avgi-GD) appeared in parliament having its leader’s wife among its group of 21. The June election of 2012 completed the destruction of the typical bipartyism of the Greek party system, ND and PASOK, now punished as the main culprits of the crisis. Presenting a rapid augmentation of voters in favour of the Left, concretised mainly in SYRIZA, this election 12 In 2012 the compulsory character of legislative quotas was reinforced, while under SYRIZA Decision 65/2019 established 40% gender quota for candidates, stipulating also the application of quotas in the 13 regions of the country separately.

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attested to a notable augmentation in abstentionism and to the young vote for SYRIZA: The latter obtaining 4.6% in the total vote at the 2009 election, 16.8% at the May 2012, and 26.9% at the June 2012 election. As for the gender divide in voting first apparent in 1985 it became a dominant parameter in Greek elections with women more to the Left than men. However, this did not necessarily influence the gender outcome of the vote in terms of women MPs. 63 women were elected in this important June 2012 election, with the compulsory character of legislative quotas reinforced, albeit still applied on the whole country as one constituency, with the drawbacks mentioned above. Replacements in 2014 brought their number to 66, later to 70, which is to be noticed: Women’s percentage often grows after the election, with MPS who “just make it”, via replacement, covering emptied seats, etc. Among the newly elected MPs, 43% were women, against 21%, in the total (soon to become 22,2%): 25 under the SYRIZA banner representing 25,2% of its delegation, 18 under ND (13,9%) 7 with ANEL 35%, the leftist DIMAR obtained 5 women MPs (29.4%), KKE 4 (33.3%), and Golden Dawn again 1 (5.5%). In January 2015 the elections provoked an important change within the Greek political system, bringing the Left, via SYRIZA to power. Young people were very involved in the electoral period, and young women established further their turn to the Left. 70 women were elected in the Parliament, (23,3%) marking the highest percentage ever. The atmosphere of change promoted an important renewal of the political personnel, pushing women’s presence forward. 45 were under the banner of SYRIZA, in a group of 149 (30,2%), and 10 out of 76 for ND (13,2%). In the extreme Right Golden Dawn group, 2 women were present out of 17 (11,8%). The newly appearing Potami (River, To Potami) elected 4 women out of 17 MPs (23,5%), KKE 4 out of 15 (26,7%), while the sui generis populist Right Independent Greeks group had 3 women out of 13 MPs (23,1%) and PASOK 2 out of 13 (15,4%). The referendum called by SYRIZA in July 2015, in order to obtain support in its negotiations concerning the debt crisis obtained a massive “no”, while SYRIZA went ahead and reached a difficult agreement with the troika, against its voters’ wishes. Calling for new elections in September 2015 to renew its mandate, SYRIZA managed to obtain an important result in the young vote, while young women in Athens, voted in favour of SYRIZA at 54.2%. (Pantelidou Maloutas, 2015, 2016), within a generalised trend of women turning more to the Left. This time,

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however, the elections took place with closed lists (due to their repetition within eighteen months), with parties setting the order of candidates. Thus, most parties marginally respecting quotas, often placed women in non-eligible positions, resulting in a diminution of the number of women elected in the five largest electoral constituencies, from 29 in January, to 19 in September 2015, out of 98 seats! (KETHI, 2015). In total, 56 women were elected, 14 less than a few months ago, selected by voters. It is the first time that the percentage of women has diminished, and this, with the application of gender quotas, revealing of the parties’ role, as safekeepers of politics as a male prerogative. It is interesting to note that SYRIZA with a closed list elected 33 women (out of 145) in September, while in January, with the preferential vote it had elected 45 out of 149. Under the ND banner 11 women were elected out of 75 seats, 3 for PASOK/DEMAR out of 17, Golden Dawn, 2 out of 18, KKE 3 out of 15, Potami 1 out of 11, and Independent Greeks (ANEL) 2 out of 10. All parties, with the (lacking in importance) exception of ND which elected one more, elected less women by the closed lists in September 2015, than by the preferential vote. A point that was not noticed enough. The return of the Right to power at the 2019 July election brought 62 women to Parliament, (20,6%), soon to become 64. Per party they make up 14,5% in ND, (23 women), 27% in SϒPIZA (23 also), 18% in KINAL (KINAL Movement for Change- Kinima Allagis) former, PASOK, (4 women), and 33% in KKE (5 women). While Golden Dawn did not make it, 3 women were elected under the exreme Right banner of Greek Solution (30%) and 44,5% of the Left party, MeRA 25 (European Realistic Disobedience Front) (4 women). Out of these 62 women, 24 were elected for the first time, marking a notable renewal of the female political personnel, while this is the first election with a lowered voting age to 17. Today’s percentage of women parliamentarians’ places Greece seventh from the bottom in a EU where the seats held by women in national parliaments vary considerably. c. Situation overview During the 1989–2019 period 1476 MPs were elected of which 16% were women (Kakepaki, 2016), showing a slow increase in their descriptive representation, particularly during the last two decades. Not really

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resulting from quotas, which, due to technical aspects, do not substantially change the “terms of the game”, but more as a result of wider societal changes and discourses legitimating gender equality. These few women, differ from their male colleagues, as they enter parliament via different venues, stay in parliament for shorter periods and transit less in ministerial positions Kakepaki, 2016, p. 130). In a party system that cultivates “powerful patterns of perpetuation” (Kountouri, 2018, p. 568) parties in Greece play indeed their role as gatekeepers foreclosing women’s opportunities. As for the relationship between feminist activism and political parties, the “divorce” created within post-dictatorship Greek politics, after a massive departure of women from parties of the Left, does not help in advancing women’s political careers. Feminists exist today in parties of the Left, their activism mostly expressed out of parliament. A concise image of this period is illustrated in Table 2.1. With an average of 13.6% women and thus 86.4% men, if we divide the period into three parts we can pinpoint women’s numerical progression, accompanied by their changing profiles. With a growing higher educational level (post-graduate studies), and better balanced between larger and smaller constituencies -while always elected more in larger ones (large urban areas),13 women elected are always younger than men, but less and less so. Also, women elected seem to have always less past ministerial experience than men, while this percentage diminishes as their numbers grow, and as they stay less time in parliament. Combined with the fact that their political capital is mainly created as they are young, women’s (slowly) growing presence in parliament seems to indicate that women are interchangeable in politics, rarely able to create long political careers as individual politicians. Their professional provenance concurs further with this idea since, while they share with men the traditional professional venues in politics, they seem more than men products of circumstance, such as their public exposure as artists, journalists, and athletes. While “family tradition” in entering politics is a little more widespread among women than men (Kakepaki, 2016) nepotism, less apparent in the Left is still present. Personal influence matters a lot for women, occasionally counter balancing their weaker position. We saw that in an out-going party (PASOK), the first to go are its women representatives, unless they 13 While their difficulty to be elected in smaller constituencies could indicate that fixed lists would solve the problem, this is not the case, as we saw above, when lists were applied in September 2015.

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Table 2.1 Socio-demographic and political profile of women in Parliament, 1989–2019 (in % except for mean age and mean terms, missing data not included)

Share in parliament Share in parliament in left/centre left partiesa Share in parliament in right/centre right partiesb Level of education PhD Master Bachelor Less than tertiary Constituency size State Single member Up to 5 MPs Up to 10 MPs Up to 20 MPs More than 20 MPs Network Age group 25–39 40–49 50–59 60+ Mean Age (years) Mean age of newcomers Political experience Past ministerial position

First period 1989–1993

Second period 1996–2009

Third period 2012–2019

Women total (1989–2019)

Men total (1989–2019)

5.6

13.1

20.8

13.6

86.4

5.1

15.8

26.3

16.2

83.8

6.3

9.7

15.2

10.7

89.3

7.1 18.6 52.9 21.4

12.4 23.7 56.2 7.7

8.7 38.2 48.7 4.4

9.8 30.4 51.9 7.8

13.1 21.8 58.2 6.9

14.3 4.3 20.0 15.7 1.4 44.3

7.1 1.0 29.0 18.6 25.2 19.0

4.7 2.2 31.0 26.3 20.9 14.9

6.2 1.8 27.9 21.8 20.1 16.9

3.7 2.3 40.0 29.7 11.2 13.2

27.1

19.0

13.3

16.9

14.1

27.1 42.9 11.4 18.6 47 41

14.5 36.5 38.5 10.5 49 45

19.9 26.7 36.0 17.5 50 47

18.9 32.2 33.8 15.1 49 47

10.5 30.0 37.9 21.7 52 49

25.7

18.6

12.0

15.9

29.8

(continued)

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Table 2.1 (continued)

Ministerial position Post in local government Party post Trade union post EU post Terms 1 term 2–4 terms 5+ terms Mean Terms (N ) Top female professions Legal professions engineers office work/services university professors business/managers artists/athletes journalists

First period 1989–1993

Second period 1996–2009

Third period 2012–2019

Women total (1989–2019)

Men total (1989–2019)

12.9

12.4

7.9

10.1

14.6

25.7

46.2

32.6

36.6

38.0

55.7 1.4 0

61.4 16.7 8.6

51.3 22.2 2.5

55.4 17.8 4.4

65.1 22.9 2.7

32.9 45.7 21.4 2.8

42.9 41.0 16.2 2.6

36.4 47.5 16.1 2.7

38.3 45.0 16.8 2.7

27.3 45.1 27.6 3.4

21.4 18.6 1.4

23.3 16.7 7.6

18.7 5.7 13.0

20.6 11.1 9.7

29.1 10.4 5.4

20

7.6

7.6

9.1

6.6

2.9 15.7 0

4.8 7.1 7.6

10.4 5.4 8.5

7.6 7.2 7.2

4.8 1.2 5.2

Source Socioscope Database (own calculations) a As Left and Center/Left were coded all MPs elected with SYRIZA, PASOK, KKE, SYN. DIMMAR. DIKKI, DIMM.SYM., KINAL, MERA25, and Ecologists b As Right and Center/right were coded all MPs elected with ANEL, ND, The River, Union of Centrists, POLAN, Greek Solution and Golden Dawn.

are well established and have family or other political roots. We also know that women stay less in parliament in the Greek case too (ibid, 2016), a trend expected to be more widespread with the widening, since 2015 of their class provenance. Women often have prior experience in local government more than men (but in lower positions), and they are more products of the party machinery, mainly until 2007–2009. It is also, interesting to note that the percentage of women who “just make it” in parliament is comparatively large, indicating their often weak/precarious

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political position. The June 2012 election is an example, with 63 women initially elected, soon becoming 70 by covering emptied seats. While the process of personnel renewal is slow, due to the social weight of politics in Greece, and mainly effectuated through the renewal of political generations it is accelerated in periods of crisis (Kakepaki et al., 2018). Then, newly elected MPs reflect a more socially democratic image, in terms of class and gender. Also, we have noticed the confirmation that, after 1996, many more women are elected by the more women-friendly Left, whose MPs constantly focus on issues of rights and exclusions, and the election of more women in big cities than in agrarian areas. Looking through the lens of continuity/discontinuity, we can pinpoint interesting moments in the gender-elites relation in Greece. Focusing on women’s presence in legislatures, we can indeed say that 2000, 2012, and January 2015, were points of notable growth. But they were circumstantial. Also, 2007 marks a notable change in the paths that women take towards parliament. As it is expected, changes take place in the composition of political elites during crisis (Putnam, 1976), its influence exercised also indirectly: it is no surprise that the 1989 elections and the “electoral earthquake” of 2012 provoked an important renewal of the political personnel. Without however capital changes in the gender composition of legislators. The establishment of a gender quota in lists could have been a notable turning point, but it was not, beyond the symbolic, due to the way that quotas were applied. Gender mainstreaming could also have been a turning point in the early 2000s in Greece. It was not. Gender framing, expressing the dominant perception of a gender dichotomy that is given/immutable in social life, did not (Pantelidou Maloutas, 2005) and still does not permit the perception of gender as an unequal social relation. Women and men are not perceived as historical categories with roles to be revisited. Modernisation, contained within the above guidelines is wished for, and “exceptional women” are accepted within “boys clubs”. But that is as far as it goes for the majority. Certainly, of the Right. The Greek case is, anyway, one where important measures concerning gender come mainly from the outside, i.e. the EU. Which means that they are often ill-adjusted to the specific context. Which government is applying them, and who is monitoring them (the general secretary responsible for their application) play an even more decisive role, in these circumstances.

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The “Solution” or, What Is at Stake? There is substantial evidence that often women MPs promote gender equality issues more than men (Hoskyns, 1996), and that quotas have a positive effect on numbers and voice, especially when compulsory. However positive results are overestimated, while not all prescriptions apply to a country low on the EIGE index. Quotas depend on context, feminist attitudes towards them, and technical issues (Verloo, 2018), with zipper systems favouring women. In Greece there is a preferential vote. Fixed lists exceptionally applied seem to work against women elected, as in September 2015, the electorate appearing more women-friendly than political parties. Furthermore, not all parties act the same in the application of gender quotas, (Murray, 2007), with parties of the Left usually more positive.14 In the Greek case, after their initial application in local elections strongly opposed, “reformed” gender quotas confronted no resistance in general elections. But neither did they create any substantial change. Women’s descriptive representation augmented in circumstances of general upheaval (January 2015 elections), with negative party attitude against quotas documented by the fixed lists in September 2015 (with quotas), marking a diminution in women elected. Also, the fact that until 2019 gender quotas were applied to the country as one electoral unity sabotaged their effectiveness. As for inner party quotas, until recently they were constantly by-passed within the Right. Parties are indeed gatekeepers of male power in personnel selection, and it would be positive to make them more responsive to the demand, of “more women” (despite it equating less men). Also, the importance of the party leader in gender issues is capital, in conditions of lack in intra-party democracy as in Greece, while, of course, it matters how the selection committees view gender equality (Krook, 2010). All the above pinpoint the obstacles that women must face in male-dominated politics to diminish exclusion. But this does not confront the unequal and discriminatory social structures that create exclusions. Nor can we expect that a bigger presence via quotas properly applied, will turn quantity into

14 There are differences among Left parties (Lovenduski, 1993). KKE considers that feminism undermines class struggle, and no longer applies quotas within party-organs as “they are not needed”. SYRIZA, supports quotas, augmented them to 40%, (50% internally), and changed a factor sabotaging them (the country as one constituency). But SYRIZA’s government gender policy was below expectations.

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quality (Childs & Krook, 2008), particularly in societies with traditional gender regimes. Thus, while it is positive to promote inclusion in the par excellence privileged male area, as it has an important symbolic and socialising effect, all the above are solutions to women’s barriers for fully participating in politics, not necessarily to the issue of gender inequality. And barriers/exclusions, cannot be substantially confronted with institutional measures respecting the existing social/gender order. Only with profound social changes including a radically transformed gender regime, the issue of less women in politics will be substantially confronted. Step-by-step “gains” do not necessarily guide towards a wider change, in the Greek case, because the agents in charge either do not want it or are illequipped. Context is of capital importance in gender policy with the “canon” resulting from the experience of “old democracies” not always helpful in policy formation elsewhere. The FEMM Committee (2019, p. 7), notes that “…once elected, women face the highly gendered power dynamic of the political system. Gender balance is a necessary—but not sufficient—condition …”. I would even argue that in traditional gender regimes parity is a desired precondition, but not a necessary one. The gender of the politician is no guaranty for the gender of politics. This is a political power game and feminists, not women, are key to advancing gender equality within a wider egalitarian social project, which would offer substantial “solution” to women’s underrepresentation in legislatures.

Concluding Remarks Women in political representation are deficient in Greece because women live in conditions of gender inequality. Not the other way round. Their restricted descriptive representation is a symptom, not the cause of their unequal social condition. An indication of a wider social problem, not identified as such, when the diagnosis is limited to a problematic “underrepresentation”. Greek feminists of the interwar period, like suffragists before them, believed that acquiring political rights would be the necessary and sufficient step for the solution of their inferior status. They failed, showing that fighting exclusion is important for the excluded, but it does not guarantee social equality. Sometimes, it even facilitates the persistence of inequality by hiding its root causes.

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The demands for more women in parliament seem often to be based on a reversal of the above causal order, as is the idea that a series of “modernising” measures will combat structural gender inequality. This might seem possible in societies with a long history of welfare state, Left governments, and different family structures, as well as activist feminists who lobby as part of established politics. But not where gender inequality is the legitimate norm, largely accepted by its “victims”, rationalising that it could be worse, or denying its existence (Pantelidou Maloutas, 2010). Although the problem will be substantially solved only if gender inequality is eradicated, as an expression of inequality, exclusion from where decisions concerning all are taken, is of particular importance. Linked also, to representing needs/interests of social inferiors, with “voice” silenced where it is most needed. But in the necessary absence of authorisation and accountability, claims that more women in parliament represent women better speaking on their behalf, relies on false arguments, confuses different meanings of “representation”, and undermines democratic principles. Even a strong advocate of “the politics of presence”, Phillips (1995) refutes the idea that women represent women in parliament. A participatory democracy stipulates the biggest possible participation, and the implication in deliberation of as many voices as possible (Held, 2006). Not a wider numerical inclusion of constructed identities in pre-decided power games. Realising the prevailing importance of gender inequality and the possibility of its continuous dominance within a situation of less exclusion, is a pre-requisite for a discussion on continuity and discontinuity in women’s descriptive representation and its patterns. All within the specific context of the country’s history of political rights, feminist demands and structure of the movement, but also in reference to wider societal structures like the family and the economy. The politics of exclusion are receiving certain coups lately, both by a political discourse promoting inclusion, and by new women’s perceptions influenced by feminism. However, so long as no substantial measures against the roots of inequality in the private sphere are instituted, no real/radical change will be noted concerning women’s lives. And whoever is doing the “representing”, it is finally stereotypical men’s interests that are represented. The most recent example being the Law on compulsory co-custody of children after divorce, regardless of whether the father is a felon of abusive behaviour. Of the 23 women MPs under the ND banner who proposed the Bill, only 2 did not vote in favour of its becoming

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Law. So, maybe more women in parliament may better challenge the male order, and maybe push towards change in the existing gender order. But only if they are feminists. It is undeniable that the unequal descriptive representation of women in legislature has consequences for democracy, justice, and the “Europeanised” profile of the country. Does it have consequences for the substantive representation of the various interests/needs of women? Probably. Furthermore, indeed, women inexistent in politics for very long are entitled to a sense of “presence and voice”. However, if we pursue the claim for more women in parliament with the hypothesis that more women represent better women’s interests, i.e. women represent women, the question of accountability is reposed, and a basic Constitutional stipulation confronted: Who represents/what is represented? If women represent women, do men represent men? Foundational principles of democracy seem to be violated. And if, wishing legitimately to fight exclusions, we continue to legitimise the existence of a gender dichotomy and differentiated needs/interests of women and men, gender inequality, thriving on the dichotomy, will continue to reign. With other forms of gender expression (and sexual identities), staying marginalised and silenced. Thus, if “more women in political decision making” and quotas, may secure greater equity and benefits for those disadvantaged by gender, as Brown (1995) notes, they can also create obstacles to more substantive forms of emancipation and getting to the root causes of gender inequality. Women will not necessarily promote these changes. Feminists are needed for that. And this is easier to understand in societies with more traditional gender regimes and lower gender consciousnesses, than in Sweden. The diagnosis of a problem (women’s deficiency in legislatures) does not directly show the way to its solution (Bacchi, 1999). We must have learned by the history of the vote that liberalism is lying when making us believe that having rights and negative liberties is all that is needed. If gender inequalities being far deeper than legal, demand radical changes, the question is how to achieve them. A close interaction/cooperation between feminists and the Left is needed for that. And the profound conviction that no socially just society can exist, if it is not feminist, and no gender-equal society can be created without a wider egalitarian project for all. Thus, looking at women in political representation based on the Greek experience, the question remains whether we consider the acquisition of rights, negative liberty and partial inclusion, as a process completed, and claim larger presence for women as a crowning

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achievement towards modernization. Or whether we consider the above as necessary first steps, towards rendering democracy substantial as a way of social coexistence.

References Bacchi, C. (1999). Women, policy and politics: The construction of policy problems. Sage. Bobbio, N. (1984). Liberalism and democracy. Verso. Brown, W. (1995). States of injury: Power and freedom in late modernity. Princeton University Press. Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of Identity. Routledge. Castiglione, D., & Pollak, J. (Eds.). (2018). Creating political presence: The new politics of democratic representation. University of Chicago Press. Childs, S., & Krook, M. (2008). Critical mass theory and women’s political representation. Political Studies, 8(56), 725–736. Childs, S., & Lovenduski, J. (2013). Representation. In G. Waylen, K. Celis, J. Kantola, & L. Weldon (Eds.), The Oxford handbook on gender and politics (pp. 489–513). Oxford University Press. Council of Europe (2017). Balanced participation of women and men in decision-making. Analytical Report—2016. https://rm.coe.int/analytical-rep ort-data-2016-/1680751a3e%20 Dahlerup, D. (2007). Electoral gender quotas: Between equality of opportunity and equality of result. Representation, 43(2), 73–92. Dahlerup, D., Leyenaar, M. (Eds.). (2013). Breaking male dominance in old democracies,. Oxford University Press. Domingo, P., Holmes, R., O’Neil, T., Jones N., Bird K., Larson A., PreslerMarshall E., & Valters C. R. (2015). Women’s voice and leadership in decisionmaking: Assessing the evidence. https://gsdrc.org/document-library/womensvoice-and-leadership-in-decision-making-assessing-the-evidence/ European Parliament/FEMM Committee, (2019). Women in political decision-making. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/ 2019/608863/IPOL_STU(2019)608863_EN.pdf Flax, J. (1990). Postmodernism and gender relations in feminist theory. In Nicholson, L. (Ed.) Feminism/postmodernism. Routledge. Held, D. (2006). Models of democracy. Stanford University Press. Hoskyns, C. (1996). Integrating gender: Women, law and politics in the European Union. Verso. Kakepaki, M. (2016). The gender dimension of representation: Women as a small minority. In M. Kakepaki (Ed.) Political representation in contemporary Greece:

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Characteristics and profile of members of the Greek parliament, 1996–2015, (pp. 109–134). EKKE—Papazissis. [in Greek]. Kakepaki, M., Kountouri F., Verzicheli L. & Coller. X. (2018). The socio-political profile of parliamentary representatives in Greece, Italy and Spain before and after the ‘Eurocrisis’: A comparative empirical assessment In X. Coller and G. Cordero (Eds.), Democratizing candidate selection in times of crisis: New methods, old receipts, (pp. 175–200). Palgrave, . Kakepaki, M. (2022). Changes in candidate selection and the sociodemographic profile of Greek MPs. Evidence from the 2019 general elections. Frontiers in Political Science, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2021.777298 KETHI, (2015). https://www.kethi.gr/sites/default/files/wpcontent/uploads/ 2016/02/ekloges_sept_2015.pdf Kountouri, F. (2018). Patterns of renewal and continuity in parliamentary elites. The Greek MPs from 1996 to 2015. The Journal of Legislative Studies, 24(4), 568–586. Krook, M. (2010). Women’s representation in parliament: A qualitative comparative analysis. Political Studies, 58, 886–908, http://www.mlkrook.org/pdf/ Krook_PS_2010.pdf Lovenduski, J. & Norris, P. (Eds.) (1993). Gender and party politics. Sage. Maloutas, T. (2021). Diversity: A critical approach. The Greek Revue of Social Research, 156, 31–54. Mansbridge, J. (2003). Rethinking representation. American Political Science Review, 97 , 515–528. Michaels, W. B. (2008). Against diversity. New Left Review, 52, 33–36. Ministry of the Interior. (1953). Why you should vote. Englightening leaflet for the Greek women voters. [in Greek]. Murray, R. (2007). How parties evaluate compulsory quotas: A study of the implementation of the ‘parity’ law in France. Parliamentary Affairs, 60(4), 568–584. On the women’s issue (2014). https://www.komep.gr/m-article/014825def42a-11e9-95d7-3ed1504937da/ Okin, S. M. (1979). Women in western political thought. Princeton University Press. Pantelidou Maloutas, M. (1992). Women and politics. Greek women’s political profile. Gutenberg. (in Greek). Pantelidou Maloutas, M. (1998). PASOK and the system of gender relations. In M. Spourdalakis, (Ed.) PASOK: Party—State—Society (pp. 233–248), Patakis [In Greek]. Pantelidou Maloutas, M. (2005). Comparing frames framing comparisons: Greece/Eu frames on gender inequality in politics. Thematic issue of The Greek Review of Social Research, 117 , 149–167.

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Pantelidou Maloutas, M. (2006).The gender of democracy. Citizenship and gendered subjectivity Routledge. Pantelidou Maloutas, M. (2007). Half a century of women’s vote, half a century of women in parliament. Foundation of the Greek Parliament, (2nd ed.) [in Greek]. Pantelidou Maloutas, M. (2010). Gender inequality as a policy issue. In B. Kantsa, V. Galani, & E. Papataksiarchis (Eds.), Gender and Social Sciences in contemporary Greece. Alexandria. [in Greek]. Pantelidou Maloutas, M. (2012). Political behaviour. Savalas. [in Greek]. Pantelidou Maloutas, M. (2016). The young as political actors in Greece under the crisis. International Sociological Association WebForum on The Futures We Want, January. 2016. http://futureswewant.net/maro-pantelidou-maloutasgreece Pantelidou Maloutas, M. & Kakepaki M. (2006). Perceptions of gender inequality. Pythagoras II Working Paper, laboratory of Greek politics, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Athens. [in Greek]. Pateman, C. (1988). The sexual contract. Polity Press. Pateman, C. (1989). The disorder of women. Polity Press. Phillips, A. (1991). Engendering democracy. Polity Press. Phillips, A. (1993). Democracy and difference. Polity Press. Phillips, A. (1995). The politics of presence. Clarendon Press. Pitkin, H. (1967). The concept of representation. University of California Press. Przeworski, A., Stokes, S. C., & Manin, B. (1999). Democracy, accountability, and representation. Cambridge University Press. Putnam, R. D. (1976). The comparative study of political elites. Prentice-Hall. Rancière, J. (2012). La méthode de l’égalité (entretiens). Bayard. Spivak, G.Ch. (1994). Can the subaltern speak? In Williams, P. & Chrisman, L. (Eds), Colonial discourse and post-colonial theory. University Press. Touraine, A. (1994). Qu’est-ce que la démocratie? Fayard. Varikas, E. (2017). Pour une theorie politique du feminism. Editions iXe. Verloo, M. (2005). Mainstreaming gender equality in Europe: Acritical frame analysis. Thematic Issue of the Greek Review of Social Research, 117 , 11–34. Verloo, M. & Pantelidou Maloutas, M. (2005). Differences in the framing of gender inequality as a policy problem across Europe. Thematic issue of The Greek Review of Social Research, 117 , 3–10. Verloo M. (Ed.) (2018). Varieties of opposition to gender equality in Europe. Routledge. Voulgaris, Y. & Nicolakopoulos, E. (Eds.). (2014). 2012: The double electoral earthquake. Themelio (in Greek). Wacquant, L. (Ed.) (2005). Pierre Bourdieu and democratic politics. Polity Press.

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CHAPTER 3

Mind the Gaps: The Class Dynamics of the Greek Parliamentary Elite Giorgos Bithymitris

Introduction The present study examines the class components of the Greek Parliament within the last three decades. The focal point of the study is the classed pattern of parliamentary representation, and its modifications in a period both of unprecedented institutional and economic stability linked with the Europeanization of Greek politics and exceptional, deep-seated, and multi-level national crisis. The first section presents some preliminary remarks on the so-called descriptive representation in the study of parliaments (Pitkin, 1972). The brief methodological comments of this section are intended to show the potentiality, and the risks of the cross-examination of sociodemographic characteristics at two distinct levels: the parliament and the society. In the second section a macro-structural argument is developed, with the

G. Bithymitris (B) Institute of Social Research, National Centre for Social Research (EKKE), Athens, Greece e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Kakepaki and F. Kountouri (eds.), Parliamentary Elites in Transition, Reform and Transition in the Mediterranean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11694-0_3

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focus being on the division between new and traditional middle class. The first component of the empirical analysis relies on the inputs from recent stratification studies. The second component builds on the approach of disaggregation in class analysis, and distinguishes eleven micro-classes, on the exclusive basis of occupations. The research questions, the nature of the processed data, and the analytical method are also discussed in full detail. Because of the specificity of the data, the links that are established between the occupational composition of the parliament and the class structure of the Greek society, are cautious, tentative, and by no means causal. The overarching aim of the suggested class model that allocates the parliamentarians to specific occupation-based classes is to make a better sense of the differences in the socioeconomic profile of the political elite across time and political space. The fourth section presents the findings of the study, while the chapter closes with some concluding remarks.

Theoretical Background At the core of the supply-side analyses on social representation in political science (in terms of class, gender, or ethnic background) traditionally lies the substantive representation, rather than the descriptive one (Heath, 2015, p. 175). In other words, the focus is mostly placed upon whether politicians will enact policies that are beneficial to other members of their social group, and not whether this or that group is actually represented in the parliament (Heath, 2015, p. 176). My theoretical starting point is that notwithstanding its non-mutuality and unevenness, the linkage between substantive and descriptive representation could potentially elucidate transformations both at the political and the social level. Due to the irreducibility of the two spheres, one should be cautious when studying social divisions (occupation-based, or gender-based) within the parliament, not least because analytical categories applied to the study of collectives, could be deemed of little use in the study of a group with formal membership. Though the occupational background and the respective class position, does not account for formal criteria of exclusion (or inclusion), in real life they operate as condition that seriously impacts upon the possibility of being elected as member of the parliament. The question then could be formulated as such: how and to what extent class affects the formation of the parliamentary elite? A possible response would be to compare the size

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of the distinct class positions occupied by the MPs in a period of reference with the size of the respective class positions in the general population. The greater the extent of misrepresentation, the greater is the effect of class relations. Obviously, any effect of the social on elite transformation is augmented, moderated, or cancelled out by virtue of other historically contingent, or structural (and sometimes interrelated) factors, such as the rise of new types of political representation (i.e. the ‘mass party’ emergence in the twentieth century, or the subsequent ‘cartelization’ of parties), constitutional reforms, changing electoral systems, strong party system dealignments, etc. (Cotta & Verzichelli, 2007, p. 460). The methodological risk of comparing class positions inside and outside the parliament, should be clearly stated here. Regardless of the class scheme that will be applied for designating parliamentarians to concrete class positions, the act of designation relies on the explicit link between properties obtained by the parliamentarians (e.g. occupational status, educational credentials, social networks, and so on) and the class positions that are structured on the premises of such differentiating properties. The problem is that at least some of these properties, and most arguably the occupational status and social networks, are heavily conditioned from the processual and structural elements of being elected in the parliament, which also explains why the legislative elite is distinguishable from other political elites whose members are not chosen in popular elections, such as bureaucrats, military officers, and judges (Kim & Patterson, 1988). Take for example an MP who is an athlete. The possibility of being a celebrity (and thus, having access to higher levels of income, or prestige) is much higher, than that of the ‘average’ athlete who, at least in Greece, is striving hard to make ends meet. To put it differently, though in most classification studies, artists and athletes occupy intermediate class positions, and are subject to rather downwardly mobile trajectories (Streib, 2020), it would be wrong to suggest that MPs who are actors and athletes, represent lower middle class, or even worse, gig economy workers. Similar discrepancies could be observed in many other cases, as far as class has a built-in temporal component. Even the newcomers in the Greek Parliament (the age of candidacy is 25) have constructed a career path prior to their entrance in the parliament. No matter if they are academics, journalists, or public servants, there is a good chance to have already created a distinct occupational profile (sometimes their family

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has already done it for them), which renders them outliers within their occupation-based group. Therefore, assigning them to a class position based on their hitherto occupational biography is not unproblematic. Perhaps the only way-out to this impasse is to think of the linkage between the social groups in the Parliament and in society in general, as a relationship of structural order, and not as a relationship of similarity. In the former case, an MP whose occupation is office clerk is designated to a lower-middle-class position in the Parliament, in relation with another MP whose occupation is lawyer, and she is designated to an upper-middle-class position. Both the lower-middle-class and the uppermiddle-class positions occupied by the MPs differ from the respective positions occupied by non-parliamentarians, but it is the structuralhierarchical relationship that matters. Although we should expect that both the MP-office clerk, and the MP-lawyer have access to better material and symbolic resources than their non-parliamentarian peers, they still occupy two distinct positions that represent two different sets of life chances. It is in this conjunction that makes sense to compare the representativeness of different class positions in the parliament, as a means for examining the factors that affect the formation of the political elite (this line of reasoning may apply to other sociodemographic groupings as well). The question then becomes, which analytical class scheme fits better to this inquiry? No doubt, the availability of data is the guiding principle here. As explained further in the next section, a two-fold analytical strategy has been adopted. As a first step, the parliamentarians are assigned to aggregate classes, resting on conventional categories of stratification. The task here is to consider the social representation of each class group. In a second step, a disaggregated class scheme is used, delving into a more nuanced analysis of occupation-based representation. The task then is to examine whether the social make-up of the Greek parliamentarians follows the historical trends that have been observed in other European countries, or it is primarily idiosyncratic.

Research Questions, Data and Methods The difficulties in examining the social representativeness of the members of the Greek Parliament, and the variation of representativeness across time, are not only methodological. Up until the 2010s the dearth of quantitative research on social stratification was apparent among Greek

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scholars. However, the global resurge of the discussion on social inequalities in the aftermath of the Great Recession, coupled with the far-reaching impact of the Greek multiple crises of the previous decade, set the stage for a renewed interest on the class structure of the Greek society (Aranitou, 2018; Sakellaropoulos, 2014; Economakis et al., 2015; Panagiotopoulos, 2021a; Panagiotopoulos, 2021b; Bithymitris et al., 2022). This is not the right place to elaborate on the different conceptualizations, and methods that have been produced from these mostly occupation-based analyses. For the purposes of the present chapter, it suffices to say that despite their differences the studies cited here distinguish 3 + 1 major class categories: New middle class, traditional middle class, working class, and upper class.1 According to Aranitou (2018), the share of the new middle class (liberal professions, employees and unemployed with tertiary education) is considered growing between 2002 and 2017. It should be noted though that Sakellaropoulos (2014) reports a rather sharp decline of the new middle class, while the reported decline is much smaller in the study of Economakis et al. (2015). According to my own calculations based on LFS data retrieved from Eurostat (2022), in the period 2009–2019, the new middle class (employed professionals and associate professionals) increases its share in the labour force from 13% to 15.6%. The withering out of the traditional middle class on the other hand is a jointly shared assumption at least in what regards the period 2009– 2014 (Aranitou, 2018, p. 185; Economakis et al., 2015, p. 177). Data from LFS drawn from N. Panagiotopoulos study (2021a: 251) confirm that between 2011 and 2019 the core of this class category consisting of self-employed and employers in semi- and low-skilled professions (mostly artisans, merchants, and craftsmen) has been decreased by 92.431 persons. The exact size of this group in 2014 was ranging from a 6.9% in the study of Sakellaropoulos (2014) to a 18.19% in the study of Economakis et al. (2015).2 According to my own calculations (Eurostat, 2022), in the period 2009–2019 the traditional middle class consisting of

1 I consider it major, not because its relative size, which is small, but because of its disproportionate access to power resources. 2 The big size of the traditional middle class in the study of Economakis et al. (2015) stems from the inclusion of the agricultural strata to this class.

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self-employed (except from managers, professionals, and associate professionals) with or without personnel and contributing family workers, slightly increases its share in the labour force from 9.8% to 10.6%. Things are more complicated in what regards the working class. Aranitou (2018) and Sakellaropoulos (2014) observe a growing trend between 2000s and mid-2010s, while Economakis et al. (2015) claim a significant decline of the working and popular classes in the same period. The variance of the reported size of the working class is huge among the different scholars ranging from 24.3% (Economakis, 2015) to 50% (Aranitou, 2018).3 My own calculations (Eurostat, 2022) show that in the period 2009–2019 the working class (employees except from managers, professionals, associate professionals, and agricultural workers) has slightly been decreased from 40.2% to 39.1%. Finally, the upper class is in decline in the period 2009–2014, and despite the recovery observed in 2019 its size remains small. Table 3.1 gives a simplified, and thus indicative overview of the recent trends regarding these four aggregate class categories, as have been captured from different methodological perspectives. For each period the table indicates (a) the data sources, (b) the period of reference, (c) the growth trend of the three classes, and the size of each class (as a percentage of the total labour force) at the end of the referred period. A common assumption that can easily be drawn is that the working class retains the biggest share within employed population, no matter how it is perceived among different authors. Though there is much less consensus on the relative size of the other groups, the traditional middle class is at best stagnating, or even decreasing if we focus on the first half of the crisis decade. As expected, regardless of the conceptual differences, the upper class (mostly identified with owners of medium-sized and big enterprises) constitutes a far smaller group ranging from 0.61% to 3% of the total labour force. Though informative, these accounts are at odds with the prevalent typologies in the sociodemographic study of the political elites. It is only at an abstract level that political scientists use concepts such as upper class, or working class, while the usage of middle-class determinations (upper/lower, or new/old) is highly improbable. The explanation that 3 This is mainly due to the designation of the low-educated unemployed to the working class in the analyses of Aranitou and Sakellaropoulos, as opposed to the analysis of Economakis and associates.

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Table 3.1 The size of the three major class groups in Greece within the last decade Authors

Sakellaropoulos (2014)

Economakis et al (2015)

Aranitou (2018)

Own calculations4 (2022)

Data source(s) Period of reference Upper Class (medium and large-sized business owners mostly) New Middle Class (liberal and scientific professions mostly) Traditional Middle Class (artisans, merchants, and craftsmen mostly) Working class (semi- and non-skilled employees mostly)

LFS 2009–2014

LFS 2009–2014

LFS 2009–2013

LFS 2009–2019

Decline 2.8%

Decline 0.89%

Decline 3.0%

Growth 0.61%

Decline 25.3%

Decline 15.9%

Growth 26%

Growth 15.6%

Decline 6.9%

Minor Decline 18.2%

Decline 12%

Minor Growth 10.6%

Growth 55.3%

Decline 24.3%

Minor Growth 50%

Minor Decline 39.1%

political elites cannot but belong to the expanding upper-middle class of late modern societies, is obviously compelling, but as any commonsensical argument, it disregards its highly normative biases and implications. Just to state the obvious, nobody will ever notice that in the course of time the representativeness of the working class rapidly falls, if the term ‘working class’ has long been abandoned. And vice versa: how could we even acknowledge the dynamic entrance of upper class in contemporary parliaments, if we have suspended the use of this term? However topical, this epistemological discussion exceeds the ambitions of this chapter.

4 I have excluded from my own analysis of the LFS data the military, those in agricultural jobs, and the non-respondents.

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As a general comment, it seems that the importance of what in many class analyses are asserted as strong descriptors of social class, such as education or the binary between routine–non-routine jobs, has declined even in parliaments with a tradition in representing blue-collar occupations like the UK (Heath, 2015). And while the complexities of decision making in the era of globalization, along with the ongoing societal shifts, render cultural capital a necessary condition for newcomers, there are also shifts on the top of the socioeconomic hierarchies within parliaments: from the 2000s onwards an increase in representation of managers and entrepreneurs (and a decrease of the share of ‘traditional’ professions such as lawyers) is observed in many countries of Central and Eastern Europe (Semenova et al., 2014). In more technical terms, what strikes as problematic from a political science perspective, is the grouping of liberal professions (doctors, legal professions, architects), along with the intellectuals (salaried and freelancers) in the new petty bourgeoisie, which in the Greek scholarship of stratification is contrasted with the traditional one. In parliamentary studies it is much anticipated to consider liberal professions as traditional crafts (Codato et al., 2017).5 For instance, in a study on the social background of MPs elected in the UK in the period 1969–2019, barristers, solicitors, doctors, civil servants, and teachers fall under the category of traditional professions (Cracknell & Tunnicliffe, 2022). Similar categorizations have been adopted in recent studies of the occupational composition of MPs of other European countries. An overview of the changes in occupational background across time and space is given in the collective work Democratic Representation in Europe which draws empirical data from the DATACUBE, a large collection of data concerning the characteristics of national legislators in European countries. Among other intriguing assumptions, this collective volume invites us to pay attention to the ‘freeze’ of the long growth phase

5 In the earlier stages of democratic development in Europe, the legal profession had played a role contributing to what Cotta and Verzichelli (2007) described as ‘protoprofessionalization of politics’: ‘Lawyers had some of the skills that could help them to play the representative role in an age of weak party organizations and the flexibility in their working schedule that made them available when politics was a part-time job’ (Eulau & Sprague, 1984 cited in Cotta & Verzichelli, 2007, p. 428). Accordingly, the decline in the weight of lawyers is attributed to a more advanced stage of professionalization of political life (Cotta & Verzichelli, 2007, p. 428).

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of public sector jobs, which may have reached its peak in the 1980s, just before the new ‘privatization’ trends prevail (Cotta & de Almeida, 2007). In the light of other developments in comparative scholarship, the private vs. public dimension, and the growing importance of knowledge/expertise are the most common class-related denominators of the modern systems of political representation. In the context of knowledgedriven capitalist economies, the rise of teaching (but also researchoriented) occupations is highly relevant (Jensen, 2003). Norris and Lovenduski (1995) have aptly adopted the term ‘brokerage occupations’ coined by Jacob (1962 cited in Norris & Lovenduski, 1995, p. 122) to describe occupations like barristers, teachers, trade union officials, journalists, political researchers, as complementary to politics. These occupations ‘combine flexibility over time, generous vacations, interrupted career-paths, professional independence, financial security, public networks, social status, policy experience and technical skills useful in political life’ (Norris & Lovenduski, 1995, p. 122). Let us now see which could be the stories of class that emanate from the empirical evidence in the Greek case. The analysis that follows draws on the data set “Members of the Greek Parliament (1989 -2019)”. From a total of 4373 entries (period 1989–2019), I selected those cases with sufficient information both in occupation and education (4331 cases). As a third of the deputies is elected only once, the 4373 entries correspond to 1485 deputies. From a structural perspective, this is hardly a problem as long as our attention is drawn on the parliaments’ seats and the social class that each seat represents. There are methodological concerns though, in what regards the different nature of data representing the sociodemographic profile of the deputies, compared to the class structure data presented so far. The reported occupations are drawn from the analysis of the curriculum vitae of each MP. Because each MP selects the job title that suits better to his/her desired profile, this information can never fully correspond to the official classifications used from the Statistical Authority (or from a surveying organization). Even if extra sources are used to improve the accuracy of the information, there is no simple way to gather the detailed information provided by a Labour Force Survey. The same applies to the information about education (although things

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Table 3.2 Social class scheme Reported profession

Education level

Social class

Legal professions Medical professions University professors Economists Journalists Engineers Teachers Artists/Athletes

Tertiary education (by default)

New middle class

Armed Forces Office workers/services Manual workers/Technicians Farmers Entrepreneurs/Managers/Self-employed Non-classified professions

Tertiary education Non-tertiary education Old middle class Tertiary education Non-tertiary education Working class Tertiary education Non-tertiary education Tertiary education Non-tertiary education

New middle class Working class

Upper class Old middle class New middle class Working class

are less complicated here, as I used a variable with only two categories: non-tertiary and tertiary education).6 To address these issues, I made the following assumptions, summarized in Table 3.2. On the top of the class hierarchy, one finds the upper class consisting of Managers and entrepreneurs with tertiary education. The basic premise is that higher education indicates entrepreneurial activity in knowledge-based economic sectors. The cases of higher administrative positions (both in public and private sector) have been assigned to the new middle class, though in the last decades, it is not unusual for business consultants and entrepreneurs to be appointed at the higher administration levels of state mechanism. Following the typology adopted from the reviewed stratification scholarship (but also enriching its analytical potential by referring to the cultural assets of each class), liberal professionals comprise the core of the

6 For those MPs without information on education, the assumption is that they lack a university degree. In the symbolic market of the Greek society such credentials are highly valued, and therefore it would be rather unexpected for an MP to ‘hide’ it.

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new middle class. These occupations demonstrate high levels of cultural capital, high social status, and a distinctive lifestyle guided by the principles of successful self-actualization, rather than tradition. Their economic capital has been negatively affected during the crisis, mainly due to overtaxation. Apart from this intellectual milieu, the new middle class of the parliament includes artists (mostly actors), and some famous athletes. Their cultural capital is not linked with formal educational credentials, but they enjoy high social status, and they adopt similar lifestyles. The traditional middle class consists of an older milieu that values order and duty, and a conservative milieu strongly oriented towards achievement and status (entrepreneurs without tertiary education, mostly active in retail and traditional industries, but also armed forces). The material status of the traditional middle class has sharply declined in the crisis years, but most importantly since the early 1990s this class has suffered from a far-reaching cultural devaluation: it is not only that its life principles are not prevailing anymore; the small business has systematically been identified as the key factor for the country’s feeble adjustment to globalization and modernization. The manual workers, the low-skilled employees of the service sector, and the farmers comprise the working class. It is a class with structurally uncertain living conditions, who used to enjoy a higher status in the 1980s both because of the upsurge of trade unionism in post-dictatorial Greece, and the rise of the socialists in power. De-industrialization (and deruralization for farmers), trade unions’ prolonged crisis, coupled with the precarization processes of the previous decade, have contributed to their gradual (and yet incomplete) transformation to the amorphous category of the precariat: those that the cultural sociologist A. Reckwitz (2021, p. 56) has aptly described as ‘muddling through from one day to the next’. Though materially more dispossessed in comparison with the traditional middle class the working-class people share the same adherence to the values of self-discipline, tradition, and order. Their political preferences bring them closer to the traditional middle class as well (Bithymitris et al., 2022).

Results Table 3.3 indicates in the most emphatic way the predominance of the new middle class within the Greek parliament across the entire period 1989–2019. Almost nine out of ten parliamentarians belong to the new

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Table 3.3 The class structure of the Greek parliament (1989–2019)

Upper class New middle class I (liberal professions) New middle class II (other than liberal professions) Traditional middle class Working class Total

Newcomers and re-elected

Newcomers only

Frequency N

Frequency N

Valid Per cent (%)

Valid Per cent (%)

215 2.582

5.0 59.6

74 633

5.9 51.3

1.234

28.5

418

33.9

67 233 4.331

1.5 5.4 100.0

25 85 1.235

2.0 6.9 100.0

Source Socioscope database (own calculations)

middle class, which is clearly over-represented. Within this class segment, the lion’s share goes to liberal professions (lawyers, doctors, engineers & economists), whose percentage on the total of MPs amounts to an impressive 59,6%. This is by far one of the highest shares (if not the highest) one could find in the study of the contemporary European parliaments. At least to some extent the overwhelming presence of liberal professions could be attributed to the following methodological choice: the reported profession of the parliamentarian determines (along with the educational criterion) her class position even if she has exercised it for a relatively limited period of time (e.g. for some years at the beginning of her career). Therefore, most MPs who have been re-elected for a second term or more, continue to be considered lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc., though they may live exclusively off politics.7 This is why the size of each class position has been separately calculated for the newcomers (columns D & E). Though reduced by 8.6 units, the prevail of the liberal professions cannot be questioned. In the opposite direction, working class (manual workers, employees without tertiary education and farmers) is clearly under-represented (5.4%). Almost a half of this class category consists of manual workers,

7 Only in prominent cases (i.e. historical party executives, leaders, etc.) they have been recorded as professional politicians.

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farmers, and technicians, indicating a sharply decreasing blue-collar presence in line with current international trends. The size of the workingclass segment within the Greek parliament is bigger when the focus is placed on the newcomers (6.9%), which is also a good indicator of the unequal allocation of resources among different classes: the political career for those with bigger economic and cultural capital is more sustainable and vice versa. The share of the upper class in the Greek parliament (entrepreneurs and managers) is 5%, which suggests over-representation comparing with the size of this class as inferred from the aforementioned stratification studies. The presence of business in the Greek parliament, though on the rise since 2000, is still less visible comparing with West European countries like Belgium, Ireland, Italy, or the UK, and especially when compared with parliaments of Eastern Europe (Semenova et al., 2014: 292). Finally, the remarkably low share (1.5%) of the traditional middle class (self-employed, business owners with non-tertiary education, and armed forces) reflects the withering dynamics of political representation of this class. It is difficult to draw comparative assumptions here, as far as most elite studies make no distinction between ‘new’ and ‘old’ business. This initial evidence showcases that occupation, and education are among the most salient social biases for parliamentary careers in Greece (Kountouri, 2018). A breakdown of the class categories into occupational groups, enables a better grasp of what is idiosyncratic and what reflects broader patterns of representation in European parliaments. Few methodological comments are deemed necessary, before elaborating on the data at hand. Though much anticipated, the temporal expansion of the data set of parliamentarians’ biographies brings to the fore new challenges and limitations that the editors of this volume are well aware of. At the moment, the disaggregation of class into smaller occupational groups is the only alternative left in the pursuit of a better understanding of how class operates in the parliament of contemporary Greece. The methodological discussion on the criteria of disaggregating classes (such as class identification and awareness, closure, collective action, lifestyles) is complex and lies beyond the scope of this chapter.8 Suffice to say that the eleven occupational categories comply with a conventional 8 For a comprehensive discussion on why and how to analyse disaggregated classes, see the seminal neo-Durkheimian analysis of Grusky and Sørensen (1998).

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classification based not only on obvious technical distinctions, but also on social ones. As already said, lawyers, doctors, engineers, and economists (accountants & tax consultants included) constitute the most popular occupations in the Greek parliament (Table 3.4). Based on the over-proportional presence of legal professions and taking into account the relatively weak representation of the political class (professional politicians) one could argue that the protoprofessionalization of Greek politics lasts longer than what has been the case elsewhere in Europe. On the other hand, the downward trend of legal professions should not pass unnoticed: from approximately 40% in the early nineties, to a mere 16.6% in the decade of economic crisis (period 2012–2015). No other occupation has recorded a decline of such Table 3.4 Occupation-based class composition of the Greek parliament across time Time periods

Legal professions Medical professions University professors Economists Journalists Engineers Office workers/ services Teachers Armed Forces Artists/Athletes Manual workers/Farmers/ Technicians Entrepreneurs/ Managers Miscellaneous jobs Missing data Total

Direction of change

1989–1993 N = 1248 (%)

1996–2009 N = 332 (%)

2012–2015 N = 320 (%)

39.9 14.0 5.5

25.8 14.1 6.2

16.6 12.4 8.3

– – +

7.9 2.6 11.2 2.2

10.3 5.6 12.8 4.8

7.8 7.9 8.6 7.6

Minor change ++ – ++

3.8 2.7 1.4 2.6

3.8 0.9 1.8 2.3

4.4 1.6 3.6 3.5

Minor change – ++ Minor change

3.0

5.9

7.8

++

3.1 0.1 100.0%

5.4 0.3 100.0%

7.6 2.3 100.0%

++ ++

Source Socioscope database (own calculations)

(%)

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magnitude, with the mere exception of Engineers: their presence was at its best, in the period prior to the Olympic Games of 2004, when public infrastructure modernization reached its peak, just to be followed by an impressive fall during the period of the economic crisis. To elaborate more, Table 3.4 presents the share of each occupationbased class category in three periods of the so-called Metapolitefsi era that has aptly been described in the Introduction of this volume: 1989–1993 (period of political crisis), 1996–2009 (period of stabilization), and 2012– 2015 (period of debt crisis). Setting aside the legal and engineering backgrounds, the decline of health professionals is also discernible, albeit only in what regards the last period under examination. On the contrary, there is a solid growth of Journalists, Entrepreneurs/managers, Office workers, Artists/athletes, but also of miscellaneous—hence non-traditional—jobs. Arguably these are some signs of increasing heterogeneity of the MPs occupational profile particularly during the period of political polarization. Furthermore, some more structural trends are also noticed. The rising share of the MPs who work as Entrepreneurs/managers points to a shift that has attracted the attention in other European parliaments as well: individuals with higher levels of economic capital are constantly improving their direct access to decision making processes, probably circumventing the partisan mechanisms by using their own resources. Substantive gains are also observed in the case of employees of the tertiary sector (office clerks, and service workers), which might indicate that political elites expand their scope by incorporating not only members of the economic elite, but also members of the non-manual working class.9 Artists/Athletes are also on the rise, in line with what one would expect given the societal shift towards cognitive-cultural capitalism of late modernity in Europe and elsewhere. Last, but not least, aligned with the rise of the teaching background that has been observed in post-war European parliaments (Cotta & Best, 2007, p. 68), university professors have gained remarkable traction within the Greek parliament, especially during the economic crisis of the 2010s. Pertinently, academics along with doctors constitute the biggest components of the public sector jobs in the parliament (23.4% and 24.9% in respect—Table 3.5). The small size of the public sector per se (24.6% versus 72% private sector background and 3.4% missing 9 The entrance of lower middle-class and working-class backgrounds in the parliament was even more salient in the double elections of 2012 and 2015.

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data) is a rather unexpected finding given the discussion on the everexpanding state apparatus in Greece. Perhaps the picture would be slightly different if the broader public sector (quasi-public corporations) was factored in, but again, an argument for the misrepresentation of private sector backgrounds could hardly be sustained. Before concluding this section with reference to political parties, a major differentiation in terms of networking resources used by different occupations is worth noting. Table 3.6 shows the percentage of MPs that have been reported as participating in trade unions per occupational group. Participation in a trade union organization seems to be the most anticipated networking activity for manual and non-manual workers who enter parliament (49.1% and 51.6% in respect). This percentage is Table 3.5 Public vs. private sector per occupational category Economic sector Public

N/A

N = 3.147 (%)

N = 150 (%)

N= 4.373 (%)

5.7 24.9 23.4 7.5 1.0 4.1 8.3 11.2 6.3 0.4 1.1

35.6 10.0 1.0 9.3 7.1 12.5 3.9 0.6 0.2 3.1 3.1

2.0 7.3 4.7 4.0 6.7 26.7 – 21.3 – – 3.3

27.1 13.6 6.7 8.7 5.6 10.9 4.9 3.9 1.7 2.3 2.6

1.0 5.2 – 100.0

7.6 4.8 1.3 100.0

– 24.0 – 100.0

5.7 5.5 0.9 100.0

N = 1.076 (%) Legal professions Medical professions University professors Economists Journalists Engineers Office workers/services Teachers Armed Forces Artists/Athletes Manual workers/Farmers/Technicians Entrepreneurs/Managers Miscellaneous jobs Missing data

Total Private

Source Socioscope database (own calculations)

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Table 3.6 Use of trade unionism and kinship as networking resources per occupational category Trade union participation Kinship network

Armed Forces Legal professions Entrepreneurs/Managers Economists Artists/Athletes University professors Journalists Engineers Medical professions Teachers Manual workers/Farmers/Technicians Office workers/services Other Missing data Total

No/ no information

Yes

Not acquainted

Acquainted

93.2 88.8 86.3 83.1 83.0 81.1 77.6 74.7 65.3 61.8 50.9

6.8 11.2 13.7 16.9 17.0 18.9 22.4 25.3 34.7 38.2 49.1

83.6 76.2 91.1 75.5 94.0 90.4 84.1 92.1 92.6 99.4 98.2

16.4 23.8 8.9 24.5 6.0 9.6 15.9 7.9 7.4 0.6 1.8

48.4 82.2 80.5 77.8

51.6 17.8 19.5 22.2

92.0 83.5 78.0 85.5

8.0 16.5 22.0 14.5

Source Socioscope database (own calculations)

lower for scientific professions (Economists, Lawyers), and as expected extremely low for those working in Armed Forces.10 It is also interesting that the occupational groups with the lowest union participation (Economists, Legal professions, and Armed Forces) demonstrate the highest levels of participation in networks of kinship, in the sense of being acquainted with other parliamentarians. On the contrary, manual workers/farmers and technicians (as well as Teachers) make almost no use of family networks, and thus, one could assume that

10 Generally, trade unions differ from other bodies of interest representation (such as Technical Chambers, Economic Chambers, and the like) at least on one crucial aspect: union membership is not obligatory for someone who wants to exercise a profession. In the case of the dataset used, participation in a professional Chamber is considered indication of union participation, but this hardly affects my argument. Contrariwise, if we apply a narrower definition of employee’s representation the unionization of the professional groups is further diminished, while the unionization of the manual and non-manual workers remains intact.

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networking through trade unionism remains the main accessible resource for them. These findings suggest that not only the composition of the cultural capital but also the composition of the social capital among different occupational groups is qualitatively different. Finally, in what regards the occupational profile of the political parties (Tables 3.7 & 3.8), the old bipartyism (conservatives/New DemocracyND and socialists/Panhellenic Socialist Movement-PASOK) differs from the new one (conservatives/ND and Coalition of the Radical Left— SYRIZA) in the following key aspects: MPs of PASOK and ND originate mainly from typically liberal professions, such as lawyers, doctors, economists, and engineers. SYRIZA on the other hand, has undergone a tremendous shift in representation patterns, between the years prior and after the double elections of 2012 (34 MPs until 2009, 513 MPs between 2012 and 2019) following the well-known ‘similarization’ process of many European parties of the socialist and communist Left (Ilonszki, 2007). As expected, the composition of the party’s parliamentarians becomes more heterogenous and balanced, representing occupational groups that before the electoral tide of 2012 were totally out of reach (such as non-manual and manual workers, armed forces, and artists/athletes). Speaking of shifts and changes across time, PASOK (which is currently called PASOK-KINAL) had the opposite to SYRIZA trajectory: from 43.9% of the vote in 2009 to 13.2% in May 2012. Compared with the occupational profile of PASOK, the profile of its successor (KINAL) is characterized by decrease of legal professionals, and medical professionals, increase of teaching professionals, but also miscellaneous jobs. The rest occupations have disappeared pointing to a loss of heterogeneity, contrariwise to what happened to SYRIZA. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) is a party with uninterrupted parliamentary presence in the period 1989–2019 and in that sense its strong working-class segment consisting of manual workers, farmers, technicians (18.0%), and office workers (12.7%), is of great political importance. The parliamentarians of the neo-Nazi party of Golden Dawn (GD) demonstrates remarkable percentages of both manual workers and entrepreneurs/manager (12.7% and 26.7% in respect), but its lifespan as a parliamentary party is much shorter (2012–2019). Other Far Right parties differ substantially from GD’s social profile. The nationalist party of Independent Greeks-ANEL (SYRIZA’s governmental ally in the period 2015–2019), had no manual workers as representatives. The same applies

– 11.1 11.1 11.1 11.1 – – –

11.1 – – 100.0

9.0 0.6 2.8 12.4

6.7 0.6 4.5 18.0

4.5

8.4 2.2 100.0

Source Socioscope database (own calculations)

44.4 – –

DHKKI N = 35 %

18.0 9.0 3.4

KKE N = 178 %

11.1 – 100.0

22.2

11.1 – 22.2 –

11.1 – – 11.1

11.1 – 11.1

DIEM 25 N=9 %

5.6 – 100.0

–

2.2 – 2.2 11.1

13.3 10.0 12.2 5.6

21.1 7.8 8.9

SYN N = 90 %

8.0 2.2 100.0

4.9

5.7 0.5 4.8 2.0

7.9 7.1 10.6 9.5

11.0 15.9 9.9

SYRIZA N = 547 %

5.7 – 100.0

2.9

11.4 – 5.7 –

– 5.7 11.4 11.4

25.7 8.6 11.4

DHMAR N = 35 %

Occupational composition of MPs of left-wing and centre-left parties

Legal professions Medical professions University professors Economists Journalists Engineers Office workers/services Teachers Armed Forces Artists/Athletes Manual workers/Farmers/ Technicians Entrepreneurs/ Managers Miscellaneous jobs Missing data

Table 3.7

5.1 0.1 100.0

2.7

4.9 1.1 1.8 2.6

8.8 3.1 15.3 4.5

30.3 13.4 5.8

PASOK N = 1408 %

13.6 – 100.0

–

9.1 – – –

– – 9.1 4.5

27.3 27.3 9.1

17.6 – 100.0

–

5.9 – – –

11.8 – 5.9 11.8

– 11.8 35.3

KIN.AL DEMOCRATIC COALITION N = 22 % N = 17 %

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75

– – – –

– 10.0 20.0 100.0

2.7 2.7 5.3 12.0

26.7

16.0 12.0 100.0

Source Socioscope database (own calculations)

– 10.0 – 10.0 50.0 – –

GREEK SOLUTION N = 10 %

5.3 1.3 – 2.7 4.0 – 9.3

GOLDEN DAWN N = 75 %

7.1 3.6 100.0

7.1

7.1 3.6 –

14.3 10.7 – 10.7 21.4 10.7 3.6

LAOS N = 28 %

2.5 1.3 100.0

12.7

– 6.3 7.6 –

22.8 11.4 6.3 7.6 11.4 6.3 3.8

ANEL N = 79 %

– – 100.0

–

9.1 9.1 – –

27.3 18.2 18.2 18.2 – – –

POLITICAL SPRING N = 11 %

Occupational composition of MPs of right-wing and centre-right parties

Legal professions Medical professions University professors Economists Journalists Engineers Office workers/services Teachers Armed Forces Artists/Athletes Manual workers/Farmers/ Technicians Entrepreneurs/ Managers Other Missing data

Table 3.8

4.4 0.4 100.0

7.1

2.3 2.6 1.1 0.8

32.8 14.2 6.5 9.2 6.6 9.3 2.7

ND N= 1807 %

– – 100.0

55.6

– – – 11.1

11.1 – – – – 22.2 –

UNION OF CENTRISTS N=9 %

– 6.9 100.0

10.3

– – 13.8 –

13.8 6.9 6.9 3.4 24.1 6.9 6.9

TO POTAMI N = 29 %

76 G. BITHYMITRIS

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to the Greek Solution, the party that currently represents the Far Right in the Greek parliament, and Popular Orthodox Rally-LAOS the Far Right party of the period 2007–2012. The change of the class composition of the Far Right in the years of the economic crisis, follows the pattern of the proletarianization and radicalization of the Far Right parties observed in many contemporary European party systems (Ignazi, 2003).

Conclusions In accordance with what is happening to the macro-structures of the Global North, Greece found/created its own trajectory to late modernity, albeit with tensions, ambiguities, and contradictions that have been culminated during the devastating and prolonged crisis of the previous decade. Neither the peculiarities of the Greek micro-capitalism, nor the persisting archaic elements have cancelled out the rise of the new middle class, in quantitative, and most importantly in qualitative terms (accruing of political resources, and trendsetting in values formation, and lifestyle). The decline and devaluation of the artisans, craftsmen, and merchants, along with the precarization of the working class, complement the ‘paternoster effects’ that have been intuitively described with reference to late modernity (Reckwitz, 2021). Therefore, the political over-representation of the new middle class, and the rise of the upper class backgrounds in the Greek parliament over the course of the last thirty years, hardly surprises us. However, data covering the first post-war periods are much needed to establish solid linkages between the late modern class transformations and the changes in elite circulation. What is perhaps a safe choice, is the examination of the intra-class dynamics: occupations that have traditionally been accredited as highly prestigious within Greek society, as it is the case with doctors, lawyers, and engineers, start losing ground from the mid-2000s, while non-manual employees, journalists and entrepreneurs have become more visible. What seems to be interesting, but counter-intuitive is the relatively small size of public sector jobs in the parliament, both prior and after the turning point of 2012. One might expect an over-representation of the higher levels of public administration given the historical legacies of patronage-based relations between the state and citizens (Mouzelis cited in Sotiropoulos, 2019). Though any reflection on this issue could be nothing else, but tentative, I would suggest that the weak representation of higher public

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administration among the Greek parliamentary elite and conversely the predominance of liberal professions, is a sign of an institutionally thin (and hence susceptible to particularism) state. Arguably in the early stages of state-building, occupations such as Engineers (and all the more so legal professions), play a pivotal role from a modernization perspective (Voulgaris, 2019). But as this ubiquitous influence lasts too long, it starts being at odds not only with enhanced levels of administrative capacity and political efficacy, but also with more inclusive and less classed visions of democracy. Not totally unrelated to this tentative argument, the fact that free professionals (such as lawyers) make use of kinship more frequently than the rest, indicates the problematic aspect of their over-representation in the long run, at least from an angle of inclusion and participation in democratic politics. On the contrary, working-class MPs use trade unionism as basic networking equipment. The latter indicates how damaging for the representativeness of the political system is the chronic dysfunction of trade unionism in Greece (and elsewhere, I would dare to say), and the erosion of vital elements of industrial democracy that have been introduced in the 1980s and the early 1990s. Although the dramatic changes of the Greek political system are closely associated with the deep-seated economic recession of 2010 and the concomitant austerity-driven responses, the socioeconomic changes within the parliament have been moderate (see also Kakepaki et al., 2018). In line with the ‘similarization’ process observed in the party family of socialist and communist parties in Europe, SYRIZA’s rise to power was followed by a loss of its distinctiveness as a party of intellectuals insofar as it started drawing representatives from a wider range of occupational groups (strong preference for the public sector has not been observed). ND on the other hand, draws disproportionately from liberal professions (especially legal professions), while the socialists become less diversified, with exceptional preference over teaching occupations, but also doctors. Overall, the Greek Left is slightly more eager to represent less credentialized occupational groups. The KKE is the most consistent case in the representation of workers, farmers, and technicians. Other Left-wing parties, like SYN (SYRIZA’s predecessor in the 1990s), or Diem 25, are also more accommodative of the working class, compared to parties of the Centre-Left and Centre-Right. A last comment on party dynamics should be made here. The party of GD, a newcomer after the elections of May 2012, is the only party of the Greek Far Right that elected MPs

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with working-class profile. This finding foregrounds the assumption that the proletarianization of the Far Right parties has become enmeshed in their radicalization within contexts of crises, and social upheaval. The study of the class composition of the Greek political elite should be carried on, as a means of a better reflection on the class dynamics, and asymmetries of power within the electorate. Among other things, future research on the parliamentarians’ socio-professional background, should examine the responsiveness of the political system to new (and old) risks, such as the Covid-19 outbreak, or/and the climate crisis. Last, but not least, the time has also come for a comparative class analysis, either based on the abstract class model suggested here, or on other validated applications of modern class theory.

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Cracknell, R. & Tunnicliffe, R. (2022, March 11). Social background of MPs 1979–2019. Retrieved from https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/researchbriefings/cbp-7483/. Economakis, G., Zisimopoulos, Y., Katsoridas, D., Kollias, G., & Kritikidis, G. (2015). Class structure and the position of the working class in Greek society. INE GSEE. [in Greek]. Eurostat (2022, March 1), Labour Force Survey 1989–2019. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/lfs/data/database. Grusky, D., & Sørensen, J. (1998). Can class analysis be salvaged? American Journal of Sociology, 103(5), 1187–1234. Heath, O. (2015). Policy representation, social representation and class voting in Britain. British Journal of Political Science, 45(1), 173–193. Ignazi, P. (2003). Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe. Oxford University Press. Ilonszki, G. (2007). Socialist and communist members of parliament: Distinctiveness, convergence, and variance. In M. Cotta & H. Best (Eds.), Democratic representation in Europe: Diversity, change, and convergence (pp. 417–473). Oxford University Press. Jensen, T. (2003). Denmark: Professionalism in an egalitarian political culture. In J. Borchert & J. Zeiss (Eds.), The political class in advanced democracies (pp. 84–106). Oxford University Press. Kakepaki, M., Kountouri, F., Verzicheli, L., & Coller, X. (2018). The SocioPolitical profile of parliamentary representatives in Greece, Italy and Spain before and after the ‘Eurocrisis’: A comparative empirical assessment. In X. Coller & G. Cordero (Eds.), Democratizing candidate selection in Times of Crisis: New methods, old receipts (pp. 175–200). Palgrave. Kim, C. L., & Patterson, S. C. (1988). Parliamentary elite integration in six nations. Comparative Politics, 20(4), 379–399. Kountouri F. (2018). Patterns of renewal and continuity in parliamentary elites. The Greek MPs from 1996 to 2015. The Journal of Legislative Studies, 24(4), 568–586. https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2018.1547947. Norris, P., & Lovenduski, J. (1995). Political recruitment: Gender, race and class in the British parliament. Cambridge University Press. Panagiotopoulos, N. (2021a). The unsung: Sociology of the popular classes in Greece. Pedio [in Greek]. Panagiotopoulos, P. (2021b). Adventures of the middle class: Sociological accounts in Greece of late metapolitefsi. Epikentro [in Greek]. Pitkin, H. (1972). The Concept of Representation. University of California Press. Reckwitz, A. (2021). The end of Iilusions: Politics, economy, and culture in late modernity. Polity Press. Sakellaropoulos, S. (2014). Crisis and social stratification in Greece in the 21st Century. Topos [in Greek].

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Semenova, E., Edinger, M. & Best, H. (2017) (Eds.), Parliamentary elites in central and Eastern Europe: Recruitment and representation, London and New York, Routledge. Sotiropoulos, D.A. (2019). State-Society relations in Greece before and after the recent economic crisis, CGK Working Paper no. 2019–06. Working paper retrieved from https://sites.tufts.edu/. Streib, J. (2020). Privilege lost: Who leaves the upper middle class and how they fall. Oxford University Press. Voulgaris, Y. (2019). Greece: A paradoxically modern country. Polis [in Greek].

CHAPTER 4

Revolving Doors Between Journalism and Politics: A Comparative Approach to Traditional and New Professions in the Greek Parliament Fani Kountouri

Introduction: The Political Parallelism Process This chapter focuses on the dynamic rise of journalists, compared with other professions, in Greek Parliament during the past 30 years. We argue that this increase is based on two aspects: first, there has been a significant redistribution in parliamentary professions that is associated with wider socioeconomic transformations, and second, journalists constitute a special group within parliament who have a discerning capital that distinguishes them from other parliamentary professions, as press and broadcasting visibility have become an important aspect of political elite

F. Kountouri (B) Department of Political Science and History, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, Greece e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Kakepaki and F. Kountouri (eds.), Parliamentary Elites in Transition, Reform and Transition in the Mediterranean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11694-0_4

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recruitment. The rise of media professions in politics is a well-known trend. Mayerhoffer and Pfetsch (2018) discussed the existence of the revolving door process between the media and political sphere in the United States, and in Europe, where “the revolving door can be an expression of party affiliation–based recruiting mechanisms” (p. 427). We will question whether the party career resources or other resources count for the entry of journalists into Parliament and will find similarities in degrees of circulation between media and political elites with other country cases (Errington & Miralgliotta, 2009; Gulbrandsen, 2010). We shall argue that political parallelism between media and political elites (Hallin & Mancini, 2004; Mancini, 2012), as the degree and nature of the links between the media and political parties, is a strong pattern in Greek political and media life (Papathanassopoulos et al., 2021). This link has taken new forms, due to the decline of political parties in West European democracies, and the commercialization of media (van des Pas et al., 2017, p. 3). Exchanges between politicians and the media system; media organizations strongly tied to political organizations; low level of professionalization; and lack of journalistic autonomy are some of the key traits of high levels of political advocacy and parallelism in countries applying to a polarized pluralist model such as Greece, Italy, Spain, and France (Baumgartner & Chaqués Bonafont, 2015; Vliegenthart & Mena Montes, 2014). Those trends facilitate the tendency for journalists to be active in political life. Political parallelism indicates an important account of the revolving door of journalists in the Greek Parliament, even though the political involvement of journalists is not a result of party affiliation/career. In this direction, Ciaglia (2013) stated that the inclusion of media practitioners in political positions, with a significant number of journalists gaining seats in national parliaments, could be seen as a new form of parallelism. While in Western Democracies media systems seem to be exposed to different amounts of political influence as the process of political parallelism states, in the era of mediatized politics political actors become also dependent on media as media logic overrides political logic (Strömbäck, 2011; Strömbäck & Esser, 2014). In this direction media elites come out “as strategic and politically relevant elites, not merely as elites limited to the particular sector of the media” (Mayerhoffer & Pfetsch, 2018, p. 418). Therefore, communication skills have gained a special value in the social and political fields; this value stems from the importance attached to the power of media and the potential effect of

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media content. The holders of this power are journalists or those who demonstrate communication skills. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first section provides a brief overview of the recent literature, the second section presents our research questions, methodology, and data, and the third discusses the empirical findings. Our analysis illustrates that the number of journalists increased in Greek Parliament due to a personal capital of visibility and reputation. We distinguish three types of journalist MPs, the Governmentals, the Partisans, and the Celebrities. We argue that the capacity to operationalize reputation and ties with political elites are valuable resources that can lead to journalists being elected to the Parliament. Therefore, the resources such as party affiliation and expertise can also lead to a journalist being appointed to a government position and to be re-elected. How Mediatization Impact the Political Recruitment Process We argue that changes, including the mediatization (Mazzoleni & Schulz, 1999) and professionalization (Negrine et al., 2007) of political life, between social structures and the political elites have incited “changes in the concentration and distribution of power in advanced societies” (Guttsman, 1960, pp. 143–144). Both processes have had an impact on political parties, which are also transforming regarding how political personnel are recruited. Mediatization and professionalization impact the way that the resources of recognition and expertise of which journalists have are transformed into a special capital. Mediatization recognizes the invasion and growing power of the media as being the most important mediator in citizens’ access to social knowledge (Strömbäck & Esser, 2014) and the consequent dependence of politics on media without, however, supporting the full subordination of political institutions to the media (see, e.g., Bennett & Entman, 2001; Meyer, 2002). One of the effects of mediatization in political life is personalization (Caiani et al., 2021) which may affect the recruitment of political parties of candidates who hold personalized resources as a result of their exposure to media (Marino et al., 2021). Another impact of mediatization is the professionalization of politics, that is, the emergence of a new class of political experts (pollsters, advertisers, media experts, spin doctors, political marketing experts, etc.) between the political and media fields. Blumler and Kavanagh (1999)

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F. KOUNTOURI

noted that the professionalization of political parties started in the 1960s with the advent of television, when there was the need for parties to adapt to the values and forms of news on television channels to meet the demands of the new media and its wider audience. Professionalism has also been underlined by theories about the changes of mass parties into “electoral-professional” parties, according to Panebianco (1988, pp. 265– 266), or to cartel parties, according to Katz and Mair (1995). In both forms, professionalism is one of the key features of party change: shifting the focus from members to voters, with the party’s focus moving toward approaching and gaining potential voters and replacing active members with professionals with special skills in media, public relations, opinion polls, and political consulting. These changes are linked, among other things, to the looser organizational structures, where the contribution of party militants recedes in favor of outside professionals with special technical skills who do not exclusively belong to the political sphere. In sum, political parties have been impacted by mediatization and transformed into transmedia parties (Casero-Ripollés et al., 2016), with communication at the core of their activities; indeed, they have become “network parties” (Heidar & Saglie, 2003), “cyber parties” (Margetts, 2001), “presidentializing parties” (Poguntke, 2005) or even “franchise parties” (Bardi et al., 2014).” In all the above cases, the parties need to take advantage of communication tools or to face the increasing tendency of the electronic media to focus on leaders or to find new organizational methods in communication or digital tools or include communication experts (including journalists) as part of the political elites. It becomes clear that the dominant role of the media in the public sphere has led to the enhancement of the communication function and to communication experts contributing to the strengthening of the political role of the media, along with the increasing importance of media capital in the political field (Davis & Seymour, 2010). It is also clear that there is a growing number of politicians whose political identity is based on their fame, “affording them an attention similar to celebrities of other kinds,” what has been defined as celebrity politics (Richardson, 2015, p. 1). The celebritization of politics (Ekman & Widholm, 2014) is a trend related to the intruding influence of the media in public and political life. In their typology, Hart and Tindall (2009, p. 258) treated journalists as highvisibility figures from traditionally non-political spheres (in the science, arts, entertainment, sports, civil society) who can act as celebrity advocates, celebrity endorsers, or celebrity politicians (those who either uses

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elements of “celebrityhood” to represent a group or cause or function as a star of popular culture and then use their popularity to speak for popular opinion; Street, 2004). We advance the hypothesis that journalists are a professional group with special resources that help them enter into the political world. “Capital” is the term used to describe the process of the accumulation of resources from actors. Gaxie and Godmer (2007, p. 115) discussed the process of accumulation of resources by political elites, emphasizing that the more a position acquires value in society, the more attractive it becomes. In the above frame, our aim is to see how the media capital used by journalists is transformed into political capital. Bourdieu (1981, pp. 19–21, 2000, pp. 64–65) recognized two types of political capital: personal and delegated. The former is linked to the personality as the result of a slow but continuous accumulation of resources such as reputation. The latter is linked to the transfer of a collective political capital of recognition and expertise through the institution in which the actor takes action: the type of capital in question presupposes investment in an institution (Kauppi, 2003, p. 780; Kountouri, 2016, p. 49). In the next section, we will use the concept of personal and delegated capital for examining how journalist’s capital as related to reputation, epistemic power, and expertise is transformed into political capital: recognition in their respective fields (districts of election) and a large amount of recognition among the electorate (Norris, 1999), knowledge of the media (rules of the media arena; see Van Aelst & Walgrave, 2017), and networking abilities in the media field (see also Karoulas, 2020, p. 261). The journalist profession has the apparatus of social visibility and public legitimacy, but also political networking, setting them apart from other occupations. Here, we should add the resource of epistemic power as the power one has over others’ opinions and beliefs, and knowledge to influence what other people think. The definition given by Archer et al. (2020, p. 29) seems valuable for those trying to enter into the political field, and it is unconnected to expertise. Reputation and expertise—or epistemic power and networking—seem to be the most valuable resources held by journalists in the field of political representation. The impact of the above transformations on the political recruitment patterns is clear. Scholars have already pointed to the overrepresentation of some professions (such as law, journalism, and education), which are known as “politics-facilitating occupations,” with common characteristics such as skills in communication and access to political networks (Norris &

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Lovenduski, 1995). Cairney (2007, p. 219) promoted a distinction in this category between “brokerage occupations” that are found within the professional category (barrister solicitor, lecturer, teachers) and “instrumental” occupations that have a clearer link to politics (such as journalists). In this chapter, we examine the case of journalists who run for political office and who use special resources to enter parliament. Questions and Methods The analysis draws on the dataset “Members of the Hellenic Parliament (1989–2019),” which includes data on the sociodemographic characteristics and political experience of all members of the Hellenic Parliament elected in the parliamentary periods from 1989 to 2019.1 In total, 4.373 entries have been registered during 14 parliamentarian terms. The unit of analysis for Tables 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4 is the parliamentary term, and for the typology (Table 4.5) the number of journalists for one election (N = 100). For Table 4.4, we have taken into account journalists per election (N = 293). It should also be noted that although we have followed the periods suggested in the introduction of this book we do not treat separately the last period (2019) because the N of journalists would be small. The category of journalists consists of those who declare journalism as their main profession (even though they also declare another profession, such as lawyers; n = 86), those who declare journalism as their second profession (n = 10), and those who, although not journalists, are communication experts dealing with the field of communication (n = 4). Other works on Greece treat journalists together with actors and athletes (Kakepaki & Karayiannis, 2016), categorizing them as mass audience professions. In this chapter, we focus on journalists, not other related professions such as actors and athletes. Based on the preceding analysis, we provide three research questions: RQ1: What are the special features of the dynamic rise of journalists compared with other professions over the thirty years under question? RQ2: What is the structure of a journalist’s capital? What are the main features of this capital, and how is it differentiated from other

1 https://socioscope.gr/dataset/deputies.

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professions? How is the capital of recognition transformed into political capital? RQ3: What are the different types of careers of journalists? Can we see the types of political careers as being related to different political resources? How many are re-elected, and what is their governmental tenure once elected? Analysis focuses on different sets of parliamentarians’ characteristics: sociodemographic variables (“gender,” “education level,” “group of age,” and “profession”), reputation variables2 (constituency size and constituency geography-state lists), and “political experience” variables such as party experience (membership in political party and/or party offices, either elected or nonelected), “local and regional experience” (“members of the municipal/peripheral council” or “elected in positions of power”—mayors or heads of regional government), “past governmental post” (posts before the election in the parliament), and “actual governmental post” (posts during the election in the parliament). We also use the “network” variable, which considers MPs having at least another close relative (brother, mother, father, nephew) serving in the same or previous parliamentary term. Journalists in the Greek Parliament: 1989–2019 The Dynamic Rise of a Professional Category Following the evolution of professions represented in the Greek Parliament from the 1989 to 2019 elections, two are the trends to underline. The first trend (Table 4.1) is the decreasing predominance of legal professions which were prevalent in parliament during the last decades. This trend is followed by the significant increase in new professions, such as journalists, but also celebrities (athletes and artists), and entrepreneurs/managers, especially during the last decade of the crisis. The proto-professionalism of the first two decades gradually gave its place to a socio-professional pluralism. Best and Cotta (2000, p. 515) described as proto-professionalization for the Italian and French political elite of the early twentieth century when lawyers acted as mediators of social

2 By reputation variables we define variables showing the reputation one’s can have to be placed in state lists or in large constituencies (up to 20 or over 20 seats).

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interests while the long-standing historical tradition of legal professions is strictly related to the formation of Western-type democracies which favor the emergence of representatives from conventional vocations of urban centers with reputation and increased prestige. For the Greek case, the dominance of legal professions can be attributed to its legalistic and formalistic form of the state (Sotiropoulos & Bourikos, 2002, p. 158). During the first period (1989–1993) there are marked differences between the two major parties of the period. Nea Dimokratia (New Democracy—ND) shows the prevalence of traditional professions (legal and medical professions), technocratic professions (university professors), and managers as it is the case of other conservative parties (Cromwell & Verzichelli, 2007, p. 209, see Kakepaki in this volume). PASOK’s (Panhellenic Socialist Movement-Panellinio Sosialistiko Kinima) MPs come mostly from scientific professions (legal and medical professions, engineers, and economists). The professional structure of the second period (1996–2009) in Parliament remains equally traditional as the first one with the constant presence of legal occupations and the ever-decreasing presence of medical professions (even in small numbers) as the second most dominant throughout the period. The decline in legal professions starts in the second period (1996–2006) reaching its lowest share in the period 2012 to 2019, with the decline evident in ND and more pronounced in SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical LeftSynaspismos Rizospastikis Aristeras). During this period, new professions emerge (managers and journalists) and others increase their share (office workers and teachers). It appears that the programmatic and ideological convergence of the two parties (PASOK and ND) is captured in the structure of the Parliament. The third period is the most politically and professionally pluralist having some class characteristics (Kakepaki & Karayiannis, 2016, p. 95). The two main parties of the period, ND and SYRIZA, show differences in the structure of the professions. Traditional professions remain dominant in the two parties, legal professions are leading in ND whereas medical professions are the primary category in SYRIZA. The scientific professions (engineers, economists) are distributed equally between the two parties while managers and journalists are powerful professions in ND and office workers and teachers in SYRIZA. The second trend reflected in Table 4.1 is that journalists are the fastest growing and evolving professional category (see also Karoulas, 2020). The dynamic rise of journalists must be seen in relation to two

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aspects. The first is the consolidation of their presence in established parties and the second is the emergence of parties having leaders—but also a considerable number of MPs—from journalistic professions. The data in this chapter confirm Cairney’s hypothesis “that although post-war levels of ‘politics-facilitating’ occupational backgrounds remain consistently high, this occurs” because of a rise in instrumental occupations but despite a decline in brokerage occupations (2007, p. 215). The decline of professions such as lawyers and the prevalence of journalists (in the Greek case) is a characteristic of the retreat of brokerage professions that has characterized the parliaments of European countries throughout the twentieth century (Cotta & Best, 2007), including the Greek Parliament (Kakepaki & Karayiannis, 2016). In the 1974 elections, there were five journalists, accounting for 1.7% of the total number of professions. This percentage decreased to 1% (three journalists) in the 1977 and 1981 elections and increased to four in the 1985 elections (Drettakis, 1991). Since 1989, however, the number of journalists has been constantly increasing. Journalists are slowly starting to compete with traditional occupations in the Greek Parliament. From 3% during the elections of 1989, this professional category rose to 10%— the highest percentage recorded—in 2019 higher than faculty members, engineers, economists, or office workers. Table 4.1 shows that journalists moved from being in the sixth place in the first period (1989–1996) under examination, to the fifth place in the second period (1996–2009), and then to the third place in the third period (2012–2019). This gradual increase began with the liberalization of radio and television in Greece (Law 1866/1989), which was a turning point in strengthening the role of journalists. Another aspect of the dynamic rise in question is that a very significant percentage of journalists (i.e., 35%) are newly elected (Table 4.1) reflecting the influx of these professionals in parliament. Such a proportion is among the highest in professional categories. The percentage of newcomers decreases in the third period (Table 4.1) due to the gradual stabilization of the category as a dominant occupation, given that all established traditional occupational categories registered lower percentages of new entrants (e.g., lawyers). The rise of journalists in politics in Greece is also underlined by Sotiropoulos and Bourikos (2002, p. 198) for the case of ministers and by Kakepaki and Karayiannis (2021, p. 170) for the case of Euro MPs. The first aspect of the dynamic rise of journalists is their gradual dominance within established, small, or even flash political parties.

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However, the consolidation of the journalistic profession in parliamentary seats occurred during the third period because of their dominance within certain political parties, which afforded them significant supremacy. Specifically, journalists comprised the second-biggest group after lawyers in ND during the third period, reflecting their dominance in established parties characterized by traditional middle-class professions, such as lawyers, doctors, engineers, and university professors. Journalists were never strong inside PASOK, while SYRIZA presented a diversified professional profile of its MPs, with the group characterized by a significant presence of doctors, lawyers, and university professors as well as engineers and office workers. The second aspect of the dynamic rise of journalists is their strong presence in some small, flash, or newcomer parties (Table 4.2). The leaders of three political parties, LAOS (Popular Orthodox Rally—Laikos Orthodoxos Synagermos), The River (Potami), and the Greek Solution (Elliniki Lysi) worked as journalists, having practiced the profession for many years. Leaders of LAOS and Greek Solution were owners and main presentators of marginalized tv channels with high visibility. Both parties gained visibility through their leaders’ TV channels (see also Pieridis in this volume). The leader of POTAMI was a well-known journalist having worked for the most popular private channels. These parties, active before, during, and even after the debt crisis, included journalists in percentages much higher than those of all the other professional categories. Leftwing parties present another interesting trait. As shown in Table 4.2, the left-wing party of SYNASPISMOS (SYRIZA after 2004) assigned key party positions to journalists. Even before the 1990s, journalists played an important role in such parties. Journalists of the left, as we examine in the typology presented in Table 4.5, are party executives who previously rendered service in newspapers of the left, such as Avgi, the historical newspaper of the Left in Greece. Such newspapers are considered special resources for party members, functioning as places of symbolic capital. Journalistic Capital: A Personal Resource of Reputation and Social Recognition In this section, we will discuss the structure of journalistic capital. To do this, we have estimated the variables that are the most valuable in a parliamentary career. The aim is to identify the most valuable resources for journalists to enter Parliament and the way they transform media capital into political capital. We hypothesize that journalists use personal

1.90 567

4.10 579

Source Socioscope database (own calculations)

39.50 11.10 3.70 7.10 15.20 2.80 3.70 3.40 1.60 1.80 2.80

43 16.8 6.20 7.90 8.10 2.80 1.00 2.10 4.10 1.00 0.30 3 1254

39.7 13.6 5.4 7.5 11.1 3.7 2.5 2.9 2.7 1.4 2.4

29.20 14.90 6.10 7.70 9.40 7.70 6.60 2.50 1.50 1.20 0.40 6.70 671

17.40 30.60 28.40 21.50 23.70 34.80 29.00 33.30 17.60 27.80 369.70 37.80 298 (24%)

3.70 753

23.60 14.50 6.00 10.50 15.00 5.30 6.00 4.60 0.50 1.60 1.90 5.3

25.2 13.8 6.1 9.5 12 6.9 6.4 3.7 0.9 1.6 2

PASOK Total

ND

First election

ND

PASOK Total

Second period 1996–2009

First period 1989–1993

Professions per party I (%)

Legal professions Medical professions University professors Economists Engineers Journalists Office workers/services Teachers Armed Forces Artists/Athletes Farmers and blue-collar workers Entrepreneurs/Managers Total number

Table 4.1

34.10 462 (24%)

18.90 31.70 37.10 30.90 26.00 35.50 40.20 32.20 14.30 56.00 28.10

First election

8.30 555

26.8 10.6 7.20 9.00 7.90 12.4 6.10 2.20 2.30 0.70 0.50

ND

4.30 511

9.60 16.40 8.60 7.60 10.00 7.00 10.20 6.80 0.60 4.30 2.00

6.8

17.6 12.1 7.8 7.6 8.3 9 8.5 4.5 1.7 3 2.5

SYRIZA Total

Third period 2012–2019

31.10 488 (32.2)

26.20 31.00 33.10 25.00 32.50 28.50 34.10 39.70 61.50 45.70 34.20

First election

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0 100 (79)

7.1 100 (28)

Source Socioscope database (own calculations)

7.1 21.4 10.7 7.1 0 0 3.6 0

22.8 (18) 8.9 (7) 6.3 (5) 7.6 (6) 10.1 (8) 5.1 (4) 5.1 (4) 0 6.3 (5) 7.6 (6) 12.7 (10)

ANEL 2012a—10.62% (33 MPs) 2012b—7.5% (22 MPs) 2015a—4.75% (14 MPs) 2015b—3.69% (10 MPs)

14.3 10.7

LAOS 2007—3.8% (11 MPs) 2009—5.63% (17 MPs)

Professions per party II (%)

Legal professions Medical professions University professors Economists Journalists Engineers Office workers/services Teachers Armed forces Artists/Athletes Farmers and blue-collar workers Entrepreneurs/Managers Total

Table 4.2

10.3 (3) 100 (29)

13.8 (4) 6.9 (2) 6.9 (2) 3.4 (1) 24.1 (7) 6.9 (2) 6.9 (2) 0 0 13.8 (4) 0

RIVER 2015a—6.1% (17 MPs) 2015b—4.1% (12 MPs)

100 (6)

16.7 (1) 83.3 (5)

ELLINIKI LISI 2019—3.7% (6 MPs)

0 100 (90)

22.2 (20) 6.7 (6) 8.9 (8) 7.8 (7) 16.7 (15) 12.2 (11) 4.4 (4) 2.2 (2) 0 2.2 (2) 11.1 (10)

SYNaspismos 1989a—13.13% (28 MPs) 1989b—10.97% (21 MPs) 1990—10.28% (22 MPs, 1996—5.12% (10 MPs) 2000—3.2% (9 MPs)

94 F. KOUNTOURI

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capital based on their recognition and reputation and on their epistemic power. This personal capital is a symbolic asset related to how a political actor gains his/her reputation during a professional career not based on resources such as education and party or governmental posts, which are considered the most powerful resources in a political—especially parliamentary—career (Fiers & Secker, 2007) and how influential he/she is in the political field. The impact of education and partisan experience on government participation and re-election has been documented (Kountouri, 2016, p. 80). Education refers to the educational qualifications held by a parliamentary actor, whereas political post refers to political experience while serving in elected (or nonelected) party posts, in trade unions, or in government positions. Resources such as education and party membership are less important for journalists who utilize a different array of resources in the political field. Tables 4.3 and 4.4 point toward three trends. The first trend refers to the role played by education, which has been described as the “most stable feature of recruitment process of the political personnel after the Second World War” (Best & Cotta, 2000, p. 517). Education is one of the most important parameters of recruitment and entry into the parliamentary field. As we have illustrated in the case of Greece (Kountouri, 2018), political personnel generally have university degrees, comparable to the political personnel of other European parliaments (except Denmark and Norway), where 65% to 85% have a university degree (Gaxie & Godmer, 2007, p. 114). In particular, 54.1% of the elected members of parliament from 1989 to 2019 held a university degree, 21.6% held a postgraduate degree, and 12.1% had a PhD. Journalists tend to have lower educational credentials, verifying the trend that “although journalistic education systems vary between countries, they share the basic premise that the entry into the journalistic profession does not require a specific degree or academic qualification” (Mayerhoffer & Pfetsch, 2018, p. 426). About half of them (51.9%) have a university degree, one of the lowest percentages following entrepreneurs/managers (who nevertheless compensate with postgraduate degrees), artists/athletes, and farmers/blue-collar workers. The percentage of journalists with postgraduate degrees (20.5%) is also low (see Karoulas, 2020). Journalists are also one of the few occupational categories (together with athletes, managers, and workers), with high percentages of MPs with less than tertiary education. Another trend

96

F. KOUNTOURI

(Table 4.3) is that education degrees were distributed unequally between the three periods under examination. The percentages in the “less than tertiary” category increased during the third period, corresponding to those of professional categories, such as workers and athletes, who also had low percentages in terms of educational resources. This trend can be associated with the rise of new parties. Therefore, we can assume that during the first and second periods, journalists were mostly press journalists, with a personal capital through education, compared with the journalists of the third period, whose capital was based on their reputation from TV visibility. The second trend revolves around political experience, which is another valuable resource for entry into parliament and a parliamentary career. We treated the political experience as a composite variable consisting of party posts, local and regional posts, and government posts (before a parliamentary election and during a parliamentary term). Party posts and government posts were among the critical parameters of this complex variable. The variable “previous or actual governmental post” points to the Ministerial careers of MPs. The journey from parliament to government can be determined by resources, such as expertise and power relations inside a party. As we have seen in this chapter the epistemic power of journalists is a resource unconnected with expertise but with the impact media have on the public’s beliefs. Therefore, their expertise in media seems to be more valuable for the leaders of the parties who use journalists as media/campaign managers. In other words, there are resources that lead to electability and resources that lead to governability. Political experience as a marker for entry into parliament was found to be a decreasing parameter in the case of journalists, of which 54.3% stated they had a party post, with a lower percentage having local posts. SYRIZA had the highest percentages of journalists who did not declare party experience, while ND and PASOK had the higher percentages of those who declared themselves members of the party. Over 70.6% of all journalists did not have a previous post in local government. In some parliaments, such as in 1989 and 1990 or 1993, 1996, and 2000, the percentages were even higher. Concerning the small increase in the participation of journalists in local posts, we must take into account the institutional changes that occurred after the Kallikratis 3852/2010 law, which led to an increase in the number of municipalities and a corresponding increase in participation in collective bodies (members of municipal, departmental, and regional councils). Moving on to their Ministerial positions, journalists seem to

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not have governability resources. The numbers in the category “actual or past governmental posts” were very low, except for the 1996 and 2000 parliaments. The third trend (see Table 4.3) shows the appeal of journalists in large districts, since nearly half (47.1%) were elected in constituencies with up to 20 seats and more than 20 seats. It is also interesting that no journalist has ever been elected in one of the single-member constituencies. On the contrary, in large constituencies (over 20 seats), journalists were the second-biggest professional category, after lawyers. Election in large electoral districts depends on the reputation of the candidates because the lists of candidates are long, competition is intense, and seats are gained by people who are well-known party members or recognized professionals. In addition, MPs elected in large electoral districts have a better chance of becoming ministers (see the typology in Table 4.5). Journalists are also often selected by party leaders to be part of the State List, where people are placed known for their social or professional appeal in a closed list. A closer look at Table 4.4 shows that journalists were mainly middleaged men, with low levels of political experience, low governmental participation, and elected in large constituencies and the State ballot. Journalists’ profiles were also close to the profile of professions like artists and athletes, that is, personalities who are popular and can be categorized as celebrity politicians. Table 4.4 shows the way journalist MPs’ transform over the years, reflecting transformations within the journalistic profession. The journalists that entered parliament during the first period (1989–1993) were qualitatively different from those elected in the last period (2012–2019). Apart from some stable elements of their profile, such as election in large constituencies and few ministerial positions, other variables such as network, gender, and education show important fluctuations. The journalist of the first period was predominantly male, university educated, elected more often when younger but also older (+60), with a family political tradition, usually elected for 2 to 4 terms, less involved in the party organs and in local posts but with some government posts, and disproportionately coming from the State lists. Their overall profile was closer to the legal and other scientific professions. The journalist of the second period was still man, this time younger, more educated, with governmental experience, more partisan, with more terms. The journalist of the third period was locally more active (local post), with more party posts and less networked and with governmental experience, and with

Education

4 35

54.2 44 63.9 37.8

Source Socioscope database (own calculations)

33.7 10.8 9.6 9.4 5.6 10.7 4.5 1.9 2 0.9 0.3

32.5 41.7 22.3 30.2 29.4 55.4 45 65.6 21.6 28.1 32

67.8 57.9 58.2 72.6 54.3 72.6 65.6 73.6 28.4 38.2 66 20.4 6.6

0 0 0 1.7 12.3 2.4 26 9.5 2.7 28.1 53 42.2 54.1

62.2 63.3 5 48.5 51.9 77.9 43.5 66 63.5 40.4 16 25.8 33.6

36.9 34.4 95 48.5 25.9 16.6 16 19 24.3 2.2 3

Party Local Past & Less Bachelor Master post post actual than title and (Yes) (Yes) government tertiary PhD post (Yes)

Political experience

Socio-political profile structure of professions (%)

Legal professions Medical professions University professors Economists Journalists Engineers Office workers/services Teachers Armed forces Artists/Athletes Farmers and blue-collar workers Entrepreneurs/Managers Total MPs

Table 4.3

34.2 26.4

25.9 10.8 37.1 28 47.1 29.2 26.7 21.3 24.4 52.8 15

20 MPs