The first constitutional regime in Greece coincides with the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821. It was not, however, until 1844, when King Otto granted his Greek subjects the first constitution that allowed an elected parliament to operate unhindered by subsequent political disturbances, at least until 1936 and the Axis occupation of Greece (1941-44). If we exclude the eight years of the Metaxas dictatorship and the years of the Axis occupation and finally the seven years of military dictatorship (1967-74), Greece has had 166 years of constitutional parliamentary democracy. What conclusions can be drawn by such longevity that challenges many European regimes of the 19th and 20th centuries? Before we come to that it would be useful to take a look at the landmark political developments in Greece in its 166 years of democratic history.

Many will wonder how it was that 19th century Greek politics were conducted in a parliament that deserves the highest marks of excellence. Such outstanding leaders as Ioannis Capodistrias, Alexandros Koumoundouros and Harilaos Trikoupis, were the products of an electorate that consisted mainly of uneducated peasants. One explanation of this paradox might be the structure of a society that allowed an educated elite to exert extraordinary influence from the pinnacle of competing pyramids of authority in a segmentary community. As democratization of society progressed, the popular base of these pyramids abandoned their loyalty to their patrons and transferred it to political parties.

The dichotomy between an elite generated by the state and its civil servants on the one hand and the multitude of heirs of the Ottoman segmentary tradition at the base, on the other, persisted until the eve of the Second World War. And what did a segmentary community imply in a pre-modern society? In a word, the primary loyalty that most voters felt to the family unit (along with relatives, friends and clients) of their origin. Each such fragment of society competed with all the others for political benefits or indeed the possession of power.

The acid test of the country’s path to modernity is to be found in the avatars of democracy in Greece. A society with an Ottoman (not indigenous) aristocracy had only the Church as a remnant of an ancien regime after independence in 1830. A huge stratum of landless peasants and a small merchant middle class left the future of parliamentary democracy hanging in the balance. The state created an elite of civil servants which produced many an important politician. The distribution of public lands to those who worked on them and the deeds of ownership to squatters, helped to integrate the masses into the system by 1873.

Although the Ottoman segmentary community was not transformed into a civil society and separation between state and society was still a goal of the modernizers, the wild individualism bred by the family unit and its supporters did not destroy the rule of law and parliamentary democracy in Greece.

With the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey in 1923, around 1.4 million refugees descended on a country of 5 million. The dispossessed multitude that filled the open spaces and public buildings in cities and on the outskirts of towns, constituted a major prop for the first class-based party in Greek history. The communists, without property and connections in their new home defied the segmentary model of politics but failed to play a major role in Greek affairs until the axis occupation of Greece (1941-44). Throughout these years a radical break with the past occurred as the traditional middle class paid the highest price for the economic collapse of the urban centers. Many working class people fled to their villages, where life was less affected by the severe shortage of foodstuff.

The communist party dominated resistance activities and emerged as a formidable military force at the end of the war. The civil war that followed (1946-49) undermined the consensual basis of politics that has always been a precondition for the operation of democracy. The communists were outlawed from 1947 to 1974 and operated as a minority party under an assumed name. Their political isolation did not permit them to evolve into a socialist or social democratic force in politics while the conservatives and the liberals continued to alternate in parliamentary majorities. The 1965 clash between the royal head of state and the popular head of government, Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou, allowed a junta of right wing officers to grab power and hold it for seven years. This military dictatorship took place in a period of liberalization of the state and an economic boom in Western Europe that trickled into Greece. However the entire affair amounted to a triumph of dead ideas and a return to a past clientelism and its networks of ultra conservatives.

The return to democracy and the end of the monarchy in Greece in 1974, heralded the most democratic era in Greek politics. Constantine Karamanlis, who returned from self-exile in France, assumed the reins of government once more and tried to make amends for the damage caused by a military regime that had, after all, been the extreme offspring of the right. Although Karamanlis legalized the communist party and steered his own New Democracy party towards the center of politics by guiding Greece into the European Economic Community, the political pendulum was swinging left. In the elections of October 18 1981, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) won an absolute majority and became the first socialist party in Greek history to form a government. The peaceful transition from a conservative to a socialist government constituted the acid test of a mature democracy.

Most European states appraise their parliamentary arrangements in accordance with the French Revolution division of left and right. Marx used the same classification for his revolutionary arguments. It was Mussolini who confused the taxonomy of left and right in the spectrum of politics. The initial left and then right orientation of his fascist-corporatist radicalism remains a contentious matter. Be that as it may, any form of radicalism is by definition contrary to liberal democracy and the rule of law upon which it is based; democracy can only work when a basic consensus on certain societal values has been achieved.

Both fascism and Stalinist communism subjected basic individual rights to the supposed interest of society. The exclusion of basic civil rights from any polity will result in a regime that draws its authority from the unbridled power of the state or the individuals that run it.

There is, however, another taxonomy that classifies political regimes according to their pure or adulterated form. Aristotle considered aristocracy in its pure form as the meritocratic regime that will benefit the state. Its debased version is an oligarchy of cronies that profit from their privileges. In this sense, if democracy in its pure form best represents the will of the people, in its debased condition it becomes an ochlocracy or mob rule. It is the nature of regimes to alternate between all the above. Aristotle believed that the only way to stabilize the more desirable polities is by educating the demos, the people.

The object of such education is to groom the youth to become virtuous citizens instead of a depraved mob. Are such views possible in an open society such as our own, in which educational choices are not the preserve of the state but individuals? In more traditional societies, such as Greece, it is in fact the family unit that makes all the vital decisions. It was by appealing to that institution that Constantine Karamanlis was able to convince the people that entering and remaining in the European community was beneficial for their progeny.

This reality is still valid for the average Greek. Any exclusion of the country from the EU project would be tantamount to abandoning the efforts of all those who championed 166 years of liberal democracy. A Grexit would constitute a primary threat to Greece because democracy has become inextricably linked to the community of like-minded Europeans.