Parliamentary Elites in Transition

This chapter introduces readers to the question of parliamentary turnover in Greece during a period of thirty years starting with the first political crisis of 1989 after the Metapolitefsi and ending with the last legislative elections of 2019. The chapter sets the aim, the central argument, and the main contextual parameters of this collective volume. It discusses 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. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first provides a brief overview of the literature on the parliamentary elites, the second section discusses the methodology and data used in this volume, and the third section provides on overview on the structure of the book.

Despite the recent increase in women’s descriptive representation, gender disparity still forms the main characteristic of the Greek Parliament. Changes in the profiles of women MPs and in gender patterns of elites are unable to cancel the idea that women in Parliament form an exception, while latent questionings are perpetuated, concerning who women elected represent: the “people”, or women? The latter, usually insinuated in the demand for “more women in parliament”, attests to the confusion among different meanings of “representation”. The article deals with the history of Greek women’s presence in parliament, the pre-1989 period indicating the climate of the first “exceptional women” elected, creating a pattern of “widows and wives” in politics. Dealing with the meagre results of electoral gender quotas and attempting to generalise its considerations on the Greek case the article discusses political representation in patriarchal societies, differentiating among more and less traditional gender regimes. It questions the implied causal direction in the relation of social inequality and political exclusion, claiming that in more traditional gender regimes more women in politics do not automatically serve better women’s interests, nor do they necessarily form a solution to gender inequality. The substantive solution to women’s political exclusion presupposes rather than provokes wider social changes.

This study 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. Building on previous studies on stratification on the one hand, and the analysis of the occupational profile of the Greek MPs on the other, this chapter provides an outline of the gaps in representation and the continuities between crisis and pre-crisis patterns. Notwithstanding the persisting over-representation of those with higher levels of cultural and economic capital, there are signs, albeit mixed, of a more encompassing direction: rise of white-collar occupations, miscellaneous jobs (professional politicians included) and occupations related to the personalization of politics (journalists, artists/athletes), but also persisting misrepresentation of the manual working class. The different use of networking between manual/non-manual workers and the professionals is highly relevant here: among working-class MPs trade unionism is a much more expected networking resource than kinship. From a democratic representation perspective, this finding draws the attention to unexamined effects of the prolonged trade unions’ decline in Greece. The relatively low levels of public sector jobs have also been observed and commented in brief. Shifting the attention to the backgrounds across party lines, the analysis pinpoints the following remarkable trends: the ‘similarization’ process of SYRIZA’s occupational profile, the predominance of liberal professions among the conservative MPs, the consistent working-class profile of the Communist Party, and the proletarianization of the Extreme Right.

This chapter discusses the increasing percentage of journalists in the Greek Parliament compared with other professions. The extent of career cross‐over from journalism to politics in Greece is explained by the growing influence of media in contemporary democracies and the impact of the resources of reputation, epistemic power, and expertise that can be capitalized by journalists. Data retrieved over the past 30 years confirm changes in the professions of MPs: the decreasing presence of traditionally represented professions (such as lawyers) and increasing presence of newly represented professions (such as journalists) is in line with professional transformations that have characterized the parliaments of European countries throughout the twentieth century. The analysis is based on two components. Our first aim is to identify patterns of political representation between new and traditional professions (levels of education, age, gender, parliamentary terms, party career, etc.). Second, we aim to present a typology of journalists’ career patterns. Our findings show the different types of capital working for entry into parliament: personal capital based on reputation and epistemic power, which lead to eligibility and delegated capital that is based on investment in political posts, further leading to re-election and governability. Journalists tend to hold the first type of capital.

The chapter will present the descriptive characteristics of MPs elected with the Conservative Party of New Democracy (ND), one of the two basic pillars of the Greek bipartyism. Between 1989 and 2019 ND gained office five times (1990, 2004, 2007, 2012 and 2019) and changed party leader six times. The period under investigation begins and ends also with two of the largest turnover percentages for the party: in June 1989 nearly half of its MPs (46.9%) entered Parliament for the first time, marking the beginning of a new political class inside the party, different from the first generation of post-dictatorship MPs, elected after 1974. Thirty years later, in 2019, another major turnover for ND (39.2%) marks the beginning of a new political generation. Having as a unit of analysis, ND’s Parliamentary Party Group (PPG), the chapter presents the basic descriptive characteristics of all ND MPs across time with a focus on newcomers. Their sociodemographic characteristics are analysed vis-à-vis changes in the ideological nature of the party, the effect of the election of a new leader and changes in party competition, with the aim to construct a typology of conservative MPs across time.

PASOK is the party that, more than any other, is believed to have influenced contemporary Greek society of the Third Hellenic Republic. The current chapter aims to explore whether changes in party’s MPs’ profiles and trajectories can be interpreted through PASOK’s main organisational transformations. Our analysis covers the period between 1989 and 2019. Research data derives from the original data set ‘Members of the Greek Parliament (1989–2019)’ of the National Centre of Social Research (EKKE). Findings were divided into three main research periods based on party’s transformations. The first period (1989–1996) is that of the ‘partisan’ representative which is characterised by a traditional profile in terms of sociodemographic characteristics and political experience. During the second period (1996–2012) is evident the ‘pluralistic’ representative which has as main characteristics the differentiation in terms of demographic profile and trajectories. Finally, the last period (2012–2019) is monitored by the ‘cadre’ representative which has as determinant factor the ‘survival’ of some influential MPs of the pre-crisis periods. Given that findings, to a large extent, can be correlated to party’s transformations it can be argued that MPs’ changes, throughout the period, constitute an additional interpreting dimension of PASOK’s route towards ‘Pasokification’.

The demographic, socio-professional and political profile of the parliamentary elite of SYRIZA, a once small party of the radical left, from the electoral earthquake of 2012 onwards leads to some preliminary conclusions regarding its overall transformation and role. Existing data point towards a limited but existing adaption of this elite to the trends already observed for socialist parties in previous historical periods both in Greece and from a comparative point of view: The initial moment of rupture in 2012 opened a window of opportunity for younger and female candidates, as well as for traditional partisans and activists from the social movements, people with more popular socio-professional background, etc., whereas after September 2015 the needs of day-to-day governance and the signature of a fiscal agreement with Greece’s creditors lead to a differentiation both of the criteria and of the selection process of the party’s parliamentary elite, resulting in an—albeit limited—convergence with the characteristics of the elites of the previously mainstream Greek parties.

This chapter focuses on the special characteristics and the profile of the far right Greek MPs elected between 2007 and 2019 with radical or extreme parties. The chapter will analyze 131 cases of MPs elected with four (LAOS, ANEL, Golden Dawn, Greek Solution) radical or extreme Right parties throughout this period during six parliamentary compositions. Our aim is: firstly, to create a typology for the four parties under examination; secondly, to examine their sociodemographic and political characteristics and thirdly to examine inner divisions between the far right parties. Our argument that lies behind this analysis is that far right MPs can be treated as a distinctive political group, yet with a significant inner division. Finally, we evaluate whether the political context of anti-systemic parties, shapes in a critical way the type of politicians that win a seat in the Greek Parliament.

This chapter examines the socioprofessional profile of technocratic ministers in Greece during the period 1989–2021. We draw upon a unique dataset of technocratic ministers that includes variables on the technocrats’ demographic characteristics, education, professional experience, and participation in civil society organizations. Latent class analysis is applied to establish a typology of the technocratic ministers. Our analysis illustrates that the number of technocrats increases in Greek cabinets during crises and that technocratic ministers come mainly from the wider public sector and much less from the market and civil society. We distinguish two types of technocratic ministers: the “movers,” who build their expertise in various positions in the public sector, private companies, and international organizations, and the “institutionally established” technocrats, who build their expertise through long-standing investment in a particular institution. Because movers are preferred by PMs as technocratic ministers, we argue that the capacity to operationalize expertise in different policy-related domains is a valuable resource for a technocrat to be appointed in a governmental position.

The chapter compares the parliamentary political elites in Cyprus and Greece before and after the 2008 sweeping economic crisis that shocked the political and party systems in both countries. Analysis focuses on some aspects of the composition, the recruitment mechanisms and the career patterns of the parliamentary political elite in the two countries utilizing a sociodemographic approach over a time span of three decades (1990–2021). The analysis aims to identify similarities and dissimilarities, as well as changes and continuities in patterns of parliamentary representation between the two countries and between the two periods in each country under the effect of the economic crisis. The overall pattern suggests a change in continuity for both countries.

The concluding chapter summarizes the findings of each chapter identifying elements of change and continuity in representation. Data indicate that most variations in the profiles of Greek MPs were the product of slow change, with the period 2012–2015 becoming somewhat of an outlier that did not however manage to establish new norms and patterns in Parliament. It introduces a typology of political careers based on previous party, local and governmental posts and discusses when do career politicians, amateurs and technopols enter Parliament.