Modern Greek Politics

(4 Credits)

Greece is a country which, in its quest to become ‘developed’, ‘modern’, and ‘European’, has been pitted against a variety of historical, political, and economic constraints. We will assess the underlying logic of this process, the controversies it has generated, and its outcomes. We will focus on the contradictions of Greek politics and society: mass politics and clientelism; polarization and democratic stability; development without industrialization; a big and omnipresent but weak and poor state within a prospering society; an official economy in perpetual crisis and a thriving underground economy. We will inquire about the actual import and meaning of modernization theories: is there a single path (and a single destination) to political and economic development?