Democracy out of Tyranny: Comparative Lessons from a Failed

“Experiment”

Ioannis Tzortzis

Mediterranean Quarterly, Volume 27, Number 3, September 2016, pp. 53-71

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Published by Duke University Press

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Democracy out of Tyranny:
Comparative Lessons from a Failed “Experiment”

Ioannis Tzortzis

Southern European democratizations have long ceased to be a center of

attention in democratization studies, especially from the “transitology” per-
spective, and yet one is surprised to find a case of a failed transition that has
not attracted much scholarly attention more than forty years after it occurred.
The ill-­fated “Markezinis experiment” of 1973 in Greece preceded the Span-
ish and Turkish regime transformations by four and ten years, respectively,
and it raises issues at political and academic levels. First, there are questions
about the sincerity of the regime’s elites for a proper democratic transforma-
tion, which would be needed to gain support from the opposition. Second,
there are issues about the feasibility of such an attempt, given the nature of
the regimes. Finally, one must look at the quality of the democracy that can
emerge from a dictatorship.1 Spain became a full democracy, allowing for a
peaceful change of government a few years later, and its successful transi-
tion “dramatically illustrated the role political actors may come to play where
outcomes are indeterminate.”2 In Turkey the transition was only a partial
success for the regime elite, who “believed that they or their associates would

1. This point was raised by P. Kanellopoulos’s rejection of the Markezinis experiment with the
claim that “it is impossible for democracy to emerge out of tyranny.” Quoted in Foivos Grigoriadis,
Ιστορία της δικτατορίας [History of the dictatorship] (Athens: Kapopoulos, 1975), 39.
2. Donald Share, “Transitions to Democracy and Transition through Transaction,” Comparative
Political Studies 19, no. 4 (1987): 545. Share agrees that “in the end, it is up to political elites to
square the circle of transition through transaction.”
Ioannis Tzortzis is a teaching fellow in the Department of Political Science and International Stud-
ies, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom.

Mediterranean Quarterly 27:3  DOI 10.1215/10474552-3697832

Copyright 2016 by Mediterranean Affairs, Inc.
54  Mediterranean Quarterly: September 2016

not lose office” and who still commanded considerable control in the coun-
try’s politics afterward.3 As for Greece, because of the deep rifts within the
regime, it completely failed, and power passed to hard-­liners (duros) for a
short period. This essay compares these cases of such different outcomes.

A Theoretical Framework for the Transitions by Reforma

In all three cases, the regime elites attempted to put an end to the dictator-
ships while trying to have their interests institutionally guaranteed in the
future democracies. The common denominator was the conclusion of the dic-
tatorial elites that it was not in their interest to perpetuate a regime that had
outlived its usefulness. Samuel Huntington noted, “That system which they
have led and presumably benefited from no longer meets their needs or those
of their society. They hence take the lead in modifying the existing political
system and transforming it into a democratic one.”4 In this logic of transition,
“it is both possible and desirable that political democracy be attained with-
out mobilized violence and dramatic discontinuity.”5 The factors considered
here for explaining the different outcomes are the nature and structure of
the regimes and the tactics of the regime elites and counter-­elites during the
transitions.6
The study of the nature of the regime, the coalitions of which it is made,
and the developments and possible differentiations within its internal struc-
ture can elucidate by which groups and for which reasons the transition
starts. Furthermore, the structures and institutions that the regime may have
created during its time in power can provide links with broader groups than
the ones that brought it about. A regime articulated on organizations that
communicate, rather than impose, their decisions to the opposition and soci-
ety, one that has created institutions survivable in a nondictatorial context
(like a political party, pressure group, or movement) or was enjoying support

3. For an account of those forms of transitions, see ibid.

4. Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratisation in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 128.
5. Guillermo O’Donnell and Philip C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for
Democracy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 11.
6. The reaction of civil society and international factors also need to be acknowledged for the out-
come of such a transition, but this essay, for reasons of space, omits them.
 Tzortzis: Democracy out of Tyranny  55

from certain organized interests, can keep in touch with the sociopolitical
reality of a country, thus facilitating the transition. This also explains why
parts of the opposition and of the people may accept that the regime elite
remain in power for some time after the transition. The complete isolation of a
regime can deprive it of information on the dispositions of counter-­elites and
the people and consequently of a basis upon which to build a consensus for
its elites’ attempt at transformation.
Regime nature includes leadership formation. Laurence Whitehead notes,
“Given the strong elements of contingency that characterize most democratic
transitions, it is of very real significance to the dynamics of the process
whether one type of leader prevails or another.”7 The presence of a leader
whose position is unchallenged, at least from within the regime, is a key ele-
ment for a transition because of its significance for offering some form of
backward legitimacy to the previous regime (important in securing the goal
of polity continuation and avoiding a violent rupture) as well as for giving the
opposition elites a credible interlocutor during the uneasy transition period.
It is also of primary importance for ensuring the neutral position of the army
toward the reforma, as a transition is problematic when, according to Yossi
Shain and Juan Linz, “the incumbents cannot count on the loyalty of the
armed forces.”8 This is especially worth noting, as in Greece and Spain the
regime elites were split over the transition issue, and hard-­liners sought to
frustrate the reformas; one of the primary reasons the hard-­liners failed in
Spain while in Greece they succeeded was the different leadership types pre-
vailing amid regime disunity.
Regime nature also helps explain when and why a nondemocratic regime
becomes “dispensable”: when, having outlived its usefulness for the regime
elites for a variety of reasons, it can be dropped in favor of a democratic
one. The term dispensability was coined by Guillermo O’Donnell and Philip
Schmitter, who hold the view that parts of a regime elite opt for democracy
because “some have gotten what they wanted . . . and are prepared to with-
draw to the enjoyment of private satisfactions” or “wish to see the transition

7. Laurence Whitehead, Democratisation. Theory and Experience (Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press, 2002), 43.
8. Yossi Shain and Juan Linz, Between States: Interim Governments and Democratic Transitions
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 57.
56  Mediterranean Quarterly: September 2016

stop at a limited liberalization which protects their tenure in office” or even

“aspire to elected positions in the emergent regime.”9
Is there a possibility of dissidence within the regime on the issue of the
transition? Dispensability does not necessarily imply unanimity on behalf of
all groups of the dictatorial coalition. Some of those groups may favor democ-
ratization, others may support limited reforms or liberalization, while still
others may oppose reform altogether. For certain elites (the military being the
most prominent example) democratization means loss of power and privileges,
and therefore they may react negatively to the attempt at change, causing a
split within the regime’s ranks. The onus is then on the regime’s soft-­liners
(aperturistas) to rally support among, and to negotiate with the opposition,
creating conditions of trust and convincing their counterparts of their good
intentions. Shain and Linz agree that “a critical factor . . . is the belief of the
opposition . . . in the incumbents’ genuine intention; a view shaped greatly by
the government’s liberalisation policies.”10
For the opposition, on the other hand, the acceptance that democracy is not
necessarily brought by democrats — rather, that “circumstances may force,
trick, lure or cajole non-­democrats into democratic behaviour and . . . their
beliefs may adjust . . . by some process of rationalisation or adaptation” — 
is crucial for its attitude during the transition process.11 The democrats are
faced with the dilemma of accepting to negotiate the transition on the condi-
tions of the dictators as the stronger part, or rejecting the compromise, thus
perhaps missing a historic chance. Because at transition times, “despite con-
cessions at the edges, the essential power structure remains intact,”12 in the
cases studied here the democrats could do little against regimes command-
ing overwhelming support in the powerful state apparatus, the intervention of
which could have fatal results for the transition. For this reason realism and
compromise are a sine qua non for the successful conclusion of a transition
process.

9. Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, vol. 4,
Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1986), 17.
10. Shain and Linz.
11. Dankwart Rustow, “Transitions the Democracy: Towards a Dynamic Model,” Comparative Poli-
tics 2, no. 3 (1970): 345.
12. Graeme Gill, The Dynamics of Democratisation (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 2000), 48.
 Tzortzis: Democracy out of Tyranny  57

Therefore, and since “liberal democracy is the most important immediate

political goal,” political pragmatism suggests that the most effective tactics
for the democrats to achieve this goal is to accept the offer of the soft-­liners
while simultaneously pressing them through negotiations for more conces-
sions.13 The window of opportunity that a transition offers should not be
missed, even if it initially brings about a fragile democracy that may at first
not fully satisfy the expectations of the democratic opposition and the people.
The aforementioned factors set the framework for the following compari-
son of the cases of Greece, Spain, and Turkey, and for a reevaluation of the
regime-­initiated democratic transition process and its analytical usefulness
in light of the Markezinis experiment.

Regime Natures and Structures Compared

The Greek dictatorship was a veto military regime, which came about with
the collaboration of numerous officers’ factions but eventually degraded to
a one-­group regime.14 The factions that opportunistically allied in order to
seize power engaged in a constant underground struggle for more powerful
governmental posts and faster promotions in the army.15 The total absence of
ties with the civil society, a political party or movement with substantial sup-
port, or any organized interest stresses the complete isolation of the military,
first, then of the prevailing group around the leader, Georgios Papadopoulos,
“the only politically thinking [one] amongst the insurgents.”16 To these prob-
lems should be added the incapacity of the regime to institutionalize itself,

13. Charles Gillespie, “Models of Democratic Transition in South America: Negotiated Reform ver-
sus Democratic Rupture,” in Democratic Transition and Consolidation in Southern Europe, Latin
America, and Southeast Asia, ed. D. Ethier (London: Palgrave, 1990), 69.
14. This categorization is based on the typologies of Christopher Clapham and George Philip, The
Political Dilemmas of Military Regimes (London: Croom Helm, 1985). A journalist spotted four-
teen different military factions that cooperated to impose the coup. See Nikos Kakaounakis, 2650
Mερόνυχτα συνωμοσίας [2650 days and nights of conspiracy] (Athens: Papazisis, 1976).
15. Christopher M. Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels (New York: Franklin
Watts, 1985), 32, speaks of “an unstable alliance of diverse and ambitious rivals.” See also Grigo-
riadis, who counts one serious crisis per year from 1969 to 1973.
16. Dimitris Haralambis, Στρατός και Πολιτική Εξουσία, η δομή της εξουσίας στην μετεμφυλιακή
Ελλάδα [The army and political power: Power structure in post – civil war Greece] (Athens: Exan-
das, 1985), 187.
58  Mediterranean Quarterly: September 2016

despite the fact that it tried to create a “constitution,” which remained on

paper, as well as the regime’s relatively short duration: by the start of the
reforma the regime was in power for six years. This isolation explains the
resistance that the hard-­liner groups posed to Papadopoulos’s attempts to
have a controlled “democratization,” which culminated in his overthrow by
the November 1973 coup. It also explains the suspiciousness and doubt with
which the Markezinis experiment was faced by the counter-­elites.
In Spain the regime was obviously different: authoritarian but “semi-­
pluralistic,” comprising a wide spectrum of interests from the military to the
Movimiento bureaucrats and from the church to the Opus Dei technocrats.
The Francisco Franco regime could not outlive its leader but found a way
to implement a process of transition, initiated by the groups that considered
it feasible to gain from it. These groups provided the basis of support to the
regime soft-­liners, and they were in touch with the sociopolitical reality of
the 1970s Spain and the international environment and knew that the time
of dictatorship had to end peacefully. It should also be added that the long
duration of the regime in power (at the time of the transition it was in its
thirty-­seventh year) gave it the time to institutionalize itself (in contrast to
the Greek dictatorship) in Spanish society.17 This made it more acceptable
for the opposition elites to negotiate the transition with the regime. As soon
as Franco, the only factor that kept the heterogeneous familias together, died,
their split into soft-­and hard-­liners (the latter being mostly military officers,
as in Greece) was inevitable although not fatal for the reforma, as the aper-
turistas would have the upper hand.
It has been claimed that Papadopoulos tried to do in 1973 precisely what
the Turkish dictatorship accomplished ten years later: the creation of a weak,
“difficult democracy” in which the army would be the main pillar of the state
and an obstacle to any further democratization. This opinion, however, dis-
regards a major structural difference between the Greek and Turkish dicta-
torships: regime coherence. The Turkish regime was predominately a “mod-
erator” type led by the hierarchical military-­as-­institution aiming to bring
17. The familias of the Spanish dictatorship and their articulation on society, as well as the Fran-
coist institutions, have been thoroughly examined. See Donald Share, The Making of Spanish
Democracy (London: Praeger, 1986); and Stanley Payne, Fascism in Spain, 1923 – 1977 (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1999), among others.
 Tzortzis: Democracy out of Tyranny  59

a major restructuring to the institutions and the politics of the country and
then retire, having constitutionally guaranteed their control over the Turk-
ish polity. Other factors were similar in both countries, such as the isolation
of the regime from civil society and political elites, except for an alliance
(temporary, as it proved) with the group of technocrats and entrepreneurs rep-
resented by Turgut Ozal and aiming to discard the political obstacles to the
economic liberalization of the country. The Turkish military was capable of
carrying out its plans without considerable splits and dictated its own rules
of departure from power, a goal that Papadopoulos was too weak to achieve,
with most of the Greek regime factions aimed at remaining in power for-
ever.18 These structural factors also differentiate the Spanish from the Turk-
ish regime, highlighted by the Turkish regime’s lack of diversity among the
regime elites and little penetration in the civil society, plus a short stay in
power (therefore no institutionalization).
The possibilities for democratic transformation of the three regimes are
thus evident from their natures: the Spanish regime, because of its complex-
ity and the plurality of groups that it represented, was more open to some
form of self-­transformation. The Turkish one, on the other hand, which had
the force to facilitate its control of the transition process from the beginning
to the end, was predictably reluctant to allow for a proper democratization.
The Greek regime stands between the two due to its military nature and the
persistent factionalism within the officer groups that imposed it. The implica-
tion is that there was not much likelihood for a transformation of the Greek
dictatorship into democracy, although at some point this might have been an
option for its elite.

Who Started the Transitions and Why?

One controversial question about the Greek reforma of 1973 is whether the
regime had indeed become dispensable for the ruling group around Papado-

18. This attitude is dramatically summed up in a quote of the hard-­liners’ leader Dimitrios Ioan-
nidis, who claimed, “We will have a dictatorship, send all our opponents to exile on the islands and
stay in power for thirty years!” See Spyros Markezinis, Σύγχρονη Πολιτική Ιστορία της Ελλάδος
[A contemporary political history of Greece] (Athens: Papyros 1994), 219.
60  Mediterranean Quarterly: September 2016

poulos. By 1973 the internal struggles within the regime had reached a stale-
mate, with Papadopoulos’s faction isolated from all other military groups as
well as from the political counter-­elites. The reaction against the dictatorship
was taking shape in both the armed forces and the civil society, as a failed
antiregime naval coup of that May and repeated student demonstrations ear-
lier that year had shown.19 To this should be added the mounting pressures
from abroad, especially from the European Economic Community, which
Greece was trying to rejoin. It has to be pointed out, however, that the regime
was by no means in crisis, despite its internal frictions and international iso-
lation. The factor that was more a cause of concern for Papadopoulos was the
internal disunity, but not in the short run. In 1973 the dictatorship could still
hold on to power with no serious setbacks for some time. Nevertheless, Papa-
dopoulos decided to end the regime (as it existed) that year; he had in mind
that things might worsen in the long run, whereas in the summer of 1973 he
could still have a margin of political initiative.
Thus, he embarked upon the transition by formally abolishing the defunct
monarchy and proclaiming the republic, of which he kept the presidency so
as to institutionalize his position, and by reforming the 1968 “constitution”
to guarantee for himself and the army uncontested arbitration of the state’s
extensive powers and close control of the political life in the weak and non-
inclusive democracy-­to-­be. This ambition shows that the dictatorship had
served its purposes as soon as some of its elites considered that they could
enjoy their privileges under a nondictatorial form of rule. Those privileges
had to be institutionally respected by the counter-­elites so that the regime
could smoothly give its place to a form of “democracy.” At the same time,
the outgoing ruling elite group would preemptively tie up the future politi-
cal developments constitutionally (holding a referendum), so that its power
would acquire an institutional cloak. This is the way Papadopoulos had con-
ceived of the reforma in the opening stages of the transition in the summer
of 1973. His problem was, however, that he was much more isolated than
he believed. After six years he had lost control of the army, with real power

19. For a detailed account of the organisation, suppression, and aftermath of the naval coup and for
the students’ demonstrations of February and March, see Grigoriadis.
 Tzortzis: Democracy out of Tyranny  61

passing to the hard-­liners under Brigadier Ioannidis, who had developed a

subtle but efficient network of information and support in the army.20 Along
with them came the Greek ­military-­as-­institution, for whom any attempt of
regime transformation meant the inevitable loss of all privileges that came
with power. With very little support outside the army, Papadopoulos turned
to the only former politician that might offer some legitimacy to his reforma,
Spyros Markezinis, who had never collaborated with the regime (a stance that
could make him an ideal figure for a transitional phase) and who believed he
could play a role in the transition and its aftermath.
In contrast to Greece, it is accepted today that in Spain the regime had
indeed become dispensable in 1976. By that time it was facing an open crisis,
albeit not a foreseeable collapse in the near future: it could still hold power,
but only with severe oppression. The support of the armed forces was vital.
The death of Franco signaled the breakup of the regime’s precarious internal
balance and the impossibility of the restoration of a stable coalition among
the various regime familias. This was exacerbated by the economic stagna-
tion that began to strike the country and the mounting internal reaction and
international pressure for change. These factors led King Juan Carlos and the
aperturistas and the Opus Dei technocrats to conclude that the dictatorship
should give its place to a representative form of rule, feeling that they could
have a future in a democracy under certain institutional arrangements. It was
from within those groups that Adolfo Suárez González, the second protago-
nist of the reforma, appeared. In contrast to Markezinis, he was a product of
the regime that he was about to transform and knew quite well the problems
he had to face and the groups that would stand against him. Papadopoulos
and Markezinis’s Spanish counterparts possessed considerable political and
social networks to sustain their move, as they were parts of a regime long
embedded in the Spanish society. At an early stage of the transition, how-
ever, suspicions were raised about the intentions of Juan Carlos and Suárez to
build a weak democracy: faking elections, excluding the Left, and confining

20. By 1973 Papadopoulos had become Ioannidis’s hostage. “Paradoxically, as Papadopoulos was
ascending the climax of offices, he was becoming more and more dependent on Ioannidis, who
assured for him the commitment of the army.” See Thanos Veremis, Ο στρατός στην ελληνική
πολιτική [The army in Greek politics] (Athens: Courier, 2000), 267.
62  Mediterranean Quarterly: September 2016

the change to some limited institutional reforms that were not meant to alter
the power structure of the Franco years.21
In Spain, as in Greece, the regime was split into soft-­and hard-liners;
in both cases the reaction to the opening of the regime came mainly, if not
exclusively, from the military. However, whereas the Greek reforma was rely-
ing on the heavily contested and unstable Papadopoulos, in Spain Juan Car-
los was enjoying wide support among all regime factions as head of state.
Although both the Greek dictator and the Spanish king opted for reforma,
only the latter was institutionally in a position to offer prestige to this move,
by calming the uneasy hard-­liners and at the same time assuring the opposi-
tion leaders of keeping the regime duros in line. For Papadopoulos, the fact
that he assumed the “Presidency of the Republic” meant next to nothing in
the eyes of counter-­elites and hard-­liners.
In Turkey, too, the dictatorship became dispensable for the military-­as-­
institution, which, in contrast to the Greek military, was united in controlling
the regime and the army. Having done well with the economy and cleared
some perceived political and institutional bottlenecks without opposition at
home (but with considerable outcry abroad), the military imposed the transi-
tion unchecked by any other elite in the country when the short-­lived regime
became dispensable. Although some factors made the structural framework
at the time of the reforma more favorable for the Turkish regime (booming
economy, total absence of antiregime social and political action, exclusion
of unwanted parties, and so forth), basically the strategy for exiting from the
dictatorship was similar to the Greek one. With the head of the regime as
“President of the Republic,” a referendum on a constitutional draft passed
without any public debate, and a carefully prepared path toward controlled
elections, the regime became dispensable when the military leaders consid-
ered that it had accomplished its purposes for their own interest. In this way
the Turkish generals prepared precisely what Papadopoulos initially aimed
for but was not in a position to achieve in Greece in 1973: a weak, difficult
democracy. However, the lack of splits within the regime in Turkey presents
a major difference from the Greek case. This is essential for understanding

21. See Paul Preston, The Triumph of Democracy in Spain (London: Methuen, 1986), for the initial
doubts about and reactions to the dispositions of the Juan Carlos and Suárez tandem.
 Tzortzis: Democracy out of Tyranny  63

the different outcomes of the transitions, as is the comparison to Spain with

its clashing factions, the mounting reaction from within the country, and its
economic crisis at the transition time.
To sum up, there were differences between Greece and Spain on the rea-
sons for the reformas and the institutional positions the regime leaders were
occupying at the time of the transitions. On the other hand, it is clear why
the Greek case has been compared to the Turkish one, given some appar-
ent similarities, although the comparison overlooks the major difference of
regime (dis)unity. Notwithstanding those differences, for Papadopoulos the
regime had indeed become as much dispensable as for his Spanish and
Turkish counterparts. This does not imply that democracy would have been
restored: the tactics of the agents involved in the transition processes need to
be examined.

Reactions from Regime and Opposition Counter-­elites

and Outcomes of Transitions

When Papadopoulos started the transition he banned most opposition groups

from participation in the elections. Gradually however, after Markezinis
joined him as prime minister, he realized that intransigence was not the best
way to win legitimacy both in and out of Greece. This led to a mellowing of
his position as he accepted, by the end of the summer of 1973, a more liberal
amendment of the authoritarian “constitution,” as well as the opening of the
elections to more political forces. Markezinis was insisting on this issue, and
it seems that he finally managed to convince Papadopoulos on the impor-
tance of concessions, which he got, securing his own ambition as the political
motor of transition and having in the democracy-­to-­be a key role, which was
unachievable for him before 1967. He did not have high electoral expecta-
tions. As he noted, “I do not have any illusions: in the elections I will get
15 percent. I hope, however, that the old parties will participate and we can
come to terms on forming a government.”22
The similarities with the Spanish case are obvious inasmuch as the

22. Spyros Markezinis, Αναμνήσεις , 1972 – 74 [Memoirs, 1972 – 74] (Athens: Markezinis, 1979),
411, gives a detailed account of those negotiations and their outcome.
64  Mediterranean Quarterly: September 2016

scopes of Juan Carlos and Suárez were similar to those of Papadopoulos and
Markezinis. Juan Carlos was trying to secure legitimacy for his role as uncon-
tested king of Spain after the dictatorship; Suárez was seeking to emerge as a
democratically elected statesman. It is notable that, far from predetermined,
their decision to democratize came as a by-­product of interregime disputes
(such as the failure of the Arias cabinet to generate the reforms he was pre-
sumably aiming at, and continuous tensions among members of his cabinet)
that reached a point where no solution other than democratic transformation
was possible.23
As for the Turkish military, they were from start to finish intransigent,
excluding the old political class from the new “democracy.” For them it was
simply a matter of using the power they commanded to impose their preroga-
tives on the way to the elections. Parties willing to run would have to apply
to the military-­led National Security Council for permission (a precondition
stipulated in the 1982 constitution).24 In their effort to put everything in poli-
tics and society under their tight control, the military-­inspired and -­imposed
constitution firmly restricted participation by the people or organized groups
in politics.
So what went wrong with the Markezinis experiment? Tactically, Markezi-
nis made fatal mistakes in dealing with the hard-­liners. The first one, for
which Papadopoulos was also responsible, was wasting crucial time in nego-
tiations for the formation of his cabinet in the summer of 1973. The lack of
a plan and the way they were improvising make it obvious that they were
far from having developed sound tactics for the road to the elections. For
instance, they could have proceeded to immediate elections in the autumn
of 1973, which, provided they were free and fair, would have put the politi-
cal opposition in a dilemma similar to the one that the Spanish counter-­
elites faced in 1976 and 1977: accept participation or leave the road open
for the regime to deal with the country’s postdictatorial politics.25 Instead,

23. On the interregime frictions and personal strategies and on Arias’s lack of reformative spirit,
see Share, The Making of Spanish Democracy; and Robert Powell, Juan Carlos of Spain: Self-­made
Monarch (London: Macmillan, 1996).
24. For the 1982 constitution, see Ergun Özbudun, Contemporary Turkish Politics: Challenges to
Democratic Consolidation (London: Lynne Rienner, 2000).
25. This dilemma was real, as shown in a letter sent in late August 1973 to Konstantinos Karaman-
lis from Konstantinos Tsatsos, former minister in the Karamanlis cabinets and later president of
 Tzortzis: Democracy out of Tyranny  65

Papadopoulos and Markezinis envisaged a transition lasting until the spring

of 1974.
The second mistake of Markezinis lay in his outspoken preparation for the
elections; he was unaware that he was dealing with ruthless military officers,
whose long experience in conspiring and subversion was a major threat to
his experiment. To his credit it can be said that he lacked information about
the developments within the army, and when he did receive information, he
became concerned and rushed to alert Papadopoulos, who was overconfi-
dent that the army would not rise against him, thus underestimating the real
dimensions of the conspiracies of Ioannidis.26 Still, Markezinis was too con-
spicuous, giving the hard-­liners valuable information, such as the date of the
announcement of the timetable for elections, making himself an easy target.
It is impressive that he has to take the blame for being so outspoken about
his presumed intentions while since that time he has been accused of the
opposite — not intending to democratize Greece. And the ultimate irony is
that the only ones who took him seriously were the hard-­liners themselves.
The third mistake Markezinis made was his inadequate distancing from
the regime. For the short time he was prime minister he seemed like a pup-
pet of the loathed dictator. He made the mistake of thinking that just some
statements of his good intentions were enough to convince the people of his
sincerity. This fact deprived Markezinis of any positive dynamics he could
acquire for his reforma, made him easily accusable as the straw man of Papa-
dopoulos, and definitely doomed his experiment, giving the opposition a good
excuse for denying support. It was particularly the Athens Polytechnic events
and the brutal repression that ensued that showed his shortcomings. The way
he reacted at the opening stages of the uprising was characteristic of an elit-
ist ignorant of the importance of the mass public in politics. The escalation
of the events took him aback, and his reaction was spasmodic and chaotic
until the situation was well out of hand; restoring “public order” thereafter

the republic. Tsatsos expressed his concern on what the rank and file of the ERE might do if Kara-
manlis abstained: he feared some of them might take their chances with a party of Markezinis, as
they would not like to be left out of a new Parliament. See Konstantinos Karamanlis, Αρχείο: Γεγο-
νότα και κείμενα [Archive: Facts and documents] (Athens: Ekdotiki Athinon, 1994).
26. See Markezinis Αναμνήσεις 1972 – 74 for the alarming information he was receiving on the
hard-­liners’ subversive activities.
66  Mediterranean Quarterly: September 2016

meant brutally suppressing the students by the police and the army to defend
the dictatorial regime against its challengers. In an infamous press confer-
ence given two days after the suppression of the demonstrations, Markezinis
congratulated the army “on having successfully and bloodlessly put an end
to the insurrection,” concluding that Papadopoulos and himself would “bring
their mission for full normalization of the political situation in Greece to a
successful end. . . . [T]hose interested in achieving the opposite will fail. The
enemy of the nation and of democracy will not pass!”27 Thus, in the eyes of
the Greeks, he “has since been unfairly blamed for a short-­lived and incon-
clusive collaboration with the dictatorship.”28
Juan Carlos and Suárez did the opposite. They distanced themselves from
the regime hard-­liners, giving the counter-­elites clear signals that they were
aiming for something more than just the restructuring of the old institutions;
this was achieved with public statements as well as with negotiations with
the opposition leaders. And, in contrast to the Greek case, these negotiations
were conducted in secrecy, depriving the hard-­liners of any information that
could alarm them and provoke their action against the transition. The tactics
of deception paid off for Suárez and the king, culminating with the surprise
legalization of the Spanish Communist Party that gave no opportunity for
reaction by the hard-­liners.29 It is nevertheless fair to remember the appeal of
Juan Carlos to the army officers because of the institution he was represent-
ing, a prestige that Papadopoulos never enjoyed among the Greek military.
The case of Turkey is different: the lack of regime divisions, the complete
hierarchical military control of the transition process, and the banning of
all unwanted parties left little space to chance. However, even there Ozal’s
stance in the elections eventually changed the outcome. One can only specu-
late on the consequence of Ozal staying in the military cabinet until the end,
or accepting to join the regime candidate Turgut Sunalp in the 1983 elec-

27. See Grigoriadis, 111, for an account of the events.

28. Meletis Meletopoulos, Η Δικτατορία των Συνταγματαρχών [The dictatorship of the colonels]
(Athens: Papazisis, 1996), 335.
29. See Preston, The Triumph of Democracy in Spain, for the negotiations between the aperturistas
and the Spanish opposition. See also Felipe Aguero, Soldiers, Civilians, and Democracy: Post-­
Franco Spain in Comparative Perspective (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995),
for the game of deception against the duros and the surprise legalization of the Spanish Communist
Party, as well as for their inertia out of respect for Juan Carlos and the monarchy.
 Tzortzis: Democracy out of Tyranny  67

tions. Sunalp’s slogan, “State first, then democracy, then the party,” made the
people realize that the dictatorship would not be really over should he win.
Ozal’s main advantage was, therefore, that “he had successfully distanced
himself from the military administration” and that the coalition forged by the
MP was that the only alternative, given the situation in 1983, to the military’s
puppet.30
Interestingly, Markezinis should have had better luck dealing with the
opposition elites. He was one of them until the dictatorship and had not col-
laborated with it until 1973. He offered the politicians the opportunity to
participate in the elections, for the freedom and fairness of which he was
giving guarantees. However, they denied that without any counter-­argument
than simply that Papadopoulos had to go. Had they accepted participation
pending on guarantees of freedom and fairness by Markezinis, they would
have been totally right to abstain if their criteria were not met; this is pre-
cisely what some of them were suggesting, but they were ignored.31 Georgios
Rallis, former minister to the Karamanlis governments, characteristically
summarized the case for negotiating in an article in which he spoke of “the
duty of politicians to unite and seek to form a majority that will allow for
the radical amendment of the Constitution”: “An abstention [from the elec-
tions] can only be decided after the refusal of the regime to take steps that
will make free and fair elections possible has been proved. . . . It is wrong to
abstain from the elections now. . . . [I]t is necessary to stake without delay
our claims, without the satisfaction of what the terms ‘free’ or ‘fair’ elections
will be — as set by the regime — void of any content. . . . When our demands
remain unfulfilled, then will be the time to unite in abstention.”32
This stance, which brought the Markezinis experiment to a standstill

30. Mehmet Ali Birand, The Generals’ Coup in Turkey: . An Inside Story of 12 September 1980
(London: Brassey’s Defence, 1987), 209. See also Ihsan Dagi, “Democratic Transition in Turkey,
1980 – 8 3: The Impact of European Diplomacy,” in Turkey: Identity, Democracy, Politics, ed. S.
Kedourie (London: Frank Cass, 1990), 141.
31. This was also the opinion of European diplomats. The Dutch ambassador wrote on 18 October
1973 that the ambassadors of the European Economic Community countries agreed that the oppo-
sition leaders “would not act in the best interests of Greek democracy if they were to abstain from
the general elections.” See Karl Barkman, Ambassador in Athens (London: Merlin, 1989), 121.
32. George Leontaritis, Σάββας Κωνσταντόπουλος, άγνωστα ντοκουμέντα [Savvas Konstantopou-
los, unknown documents] (Athens: Proskinio, 2003), 166 – 7.
68  Mediterranean Quarterly: September 2016

before its sudden death by force of arms, becomes even less explicable com-
pared to the other cases. Indeed, in Spain the counter-­elites, communists
included, discussed with the aperturistas the possibility of participating in
the elections, provided they would be inclusive and fair, and eventually they
did take part. The comparison with Turkey is equally puzzling: not only did
members of the “old political class” protest against their exclusion from the
elections based on the authoritarian constitution of the military, but in later
years they even accused Ozal of having “stolen” the 1983 elections because of
their ban. They considered themselves deprived of their right to participate — 
what the Greek elites had turned down without negotiating.
Based on these comparisons, it appears the difference in the outcomes
was also due to the actors’ tactics during the transition, especially on facing
a double opposition (such as in Greece and Spain) between regime soft-­and
hard-­liners and between soft-­liners and democratic opposition. The silent but
evident distancing of soft-­liners from the regime’s hard core, and the real-
ism and compromise on behalf of the counter-­elites, helped overcome cru-
cial issues and favored the accommodation between soft-­liners and opposition
in Spain, but not in Greece; Papadopoulos and Markezinis can be called a
failed Juan Carlos and Suárez, respectively. Their inefficiencies in handling
the process of transition cannot make an adequate excuse for the fact that
the regime nature was unfavorable to their attempt. In Turkey, too, similar
choices (Ozal’s emancipation from the military) led to an outcome radically
different to what the regime elites envisaged.

Conclusions: The Two Peculiarities of the Markezinis Experiment

The comparison of the Markezinis experiment to Spain’s and Turkey’s tran-

sitions by reforma as contingent upon the nature of the dictatorial regimes
and the actors’ choices seems to present two noteworthy paradoxes. Although
regime nature is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the explanation
of dispensability, and the consensus is that the Spanish and Turkish transi-
tions are such cases, in Greece there is widespread doubt that the regime
was equally dispensable for its elites. And whereas the Spanish and Turk-
ish oppositions showed eagerness to accept the transition process (tailored
to suit the regime elites’ interests, in the case of Turkey) and participate in
 Tzortzis: Democracy out of Tyranny  69

the elections, in Greece the counter-­elites did not do so, thus bringing the
attempted reforma to an impasse well before the hard-­liners ended it with
their counter-­coup.
The cases of Greece and Turkey confirm that “no military regime . . .
is able to maintain an uncomplicated unity of military and political com-
mand . . . in anything but the short term: a matter of some two or three years
at most,” which is precisely the lifespan of the Turkish dictatorship.33 The
fact that the Greek one lasted longer does not denote a successful regime: it
was supposed to last as long as it could serve those who imposed it without
having any plans on the implications of their rule on Greek society. As for
the Spanish regime, it was the par excellence authoritarian coalition, which
institutionalized itself and developed into a more sophisticated form of rule
than sheer authoritarianism, permeating the society and creating bodies that
could function as consultative and supportive nets, which gave it the chance
to lead a successful transition. Furthermore, the links the regime elites cre-
ated with broader interests allowed the creation of friendly political groups
and consequently their institutional representation in the new democracy.
For these issues the degree of “civilianization” of the regime was important
and decisive for the transition outcomes: the Greek and Turkish regimes were
almost exclusively military coalitions, with one major difference: the Turkish
regime was led by the hierarchical military-as-institution envisaging a deep
institutional reform suited to its interests, whereas the Greek one was the
product of an opportunistic alliance of nonhierarchical factions focused on
the perpetuation of their narrow factional interests. For Spain, the fact that
the military was never the major group was, in turn, decisive for the success
of Suárez and Juan Carlos.
On the issue of dispensability, the Greek regime had indeed become dis-
pensable for Papadopoulos and his group, as much as the Spanish regime
had become so for the aperturistas of Juan Carlos and Suárez and the Turk-
ish regime for the Turkish military as an institution and the regime leader
Kenan Evren. Dispensability does not appear to be the product of regime
crisis: In Spain this was the case, but not in Greece and Turkey, thus the idea
that “authoritarians only decide to liberalize because of perceived threats”

33. Clapham and Philip, 3.

70  Mediterranean Quarterly: September 2016

does not hold much analytical value.34 Also, the presence of an elite or an
institution that is unchallenged (like the king in Spain or the military in Tur-
key, in contrast to the heavily contested Papadopoulos in Greece) has to be
given significance for maintaining support among regime groups that might
not endorse the reforma. It is clear that the Markezinis experiment started in
a quite deficient context compared to the Spanish and Turkish transitions.
Does that mean it was stillborn or fake? The garantismo that accompanied
the Turkish transition proving that in some cases regime transformation is
intended “not only to fall short of immediate democratization but also in fact
to relegate democratization to some unknown future at best” could also apply
to the Markezinis case.35 Dispensability does not guarantee the restoration of
a fully functioning democracy; the transition outcome is also contingent on
the tactics of the actors involved in the process, where the second paradox in
the Greek case appears.
Assuming their intentions to democratize were sincere, the Greek and
Spanish soft-­liners did not follow to the same extent Huntington’s “guide-
lines for democratizers” for overcoming certain obstacles to reforma. Espe-
cially Huntington’s insistence on checking the military hard-­liners’ reaction
by depriving them of substantial access to information and surprising them
(clearly what Suárez achieved and Markezinis did not) and convincing the
opposition of the good will of the soft-­liners was totally overlooked by Papado-
poulos and Markezinis.36 Last, the capacity of the regime soft-­liners to follow
the dispositions of the civil society so as to adapt their tactics in distancing
themselves from the hard-­liners is pivotal; the opposing cases of Suárez and
Markezinis (for example, the latter’s blunders during the Polytechnic events)
as well as Ozal’s choice not to ally with the regime in the elections con-
firm this. In Turkey a transition supposed to produce a “crippled” democ-
racy turned into the triumph of the regime’s nonfavorite. If Papadopoulos was

34. Thomas Eisenstadt, “Eddies in the Third Wave: Protracted Transitions and Theories of Democ-
ratisation,” Democratisation 7, no. 3 (2000): 3 – 24.
35. Giuseppe Di Palma, To Craft Democracies: An Essay on Democratic Transitions (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1990), 124.
36. “A critical factor . . . is the belief of the opposition and the public at large in the incumbents’
genuine intention; a view shaped greatly by the government’s liberalisation policies.” Shain and
Linz, 56.
 Tzortzis: Democracy out of Tyranny  71

a failed Juan Carlos or Evren, therefore, Markezinis was a failed Suárez or

Ozal.
Notwithstanding the preceding, the reaction of the Greek opposition elites
to the Markezinis experiment raises some questions. Praised as an act of
defiance against the authoritarian ruler, it can be viewed with a different eye
compared to the Spanish democrats who cooperated with the soft-­liners and
also to the Turkish politicians claiming their right to participate in the 1983
elections. Were the Greek counter-­elites wrong to act against Huntington’s
advice that “opposition groups who wanted democracy should not have boy-
cotted the elections authoritarian leaders did call” and ignore Markezinis’s
pledges?37 In all three cases the opposition could do little if anything against
a dictatorial regime commanding support in the powerful state apparatus and
strong enough to frustrate the reforma, with fatal results for the transition.
Although this can be a double-­edged sword for the democrats, as it may ini-
tially lead to a “difficult democracy” (the argument used by the Greek politi-
cians for boycotting negotiations with Markezinis), it can nevertheless make
space for the prodemocratic groups to exploit the institutions and press for a
more inclusive democratic settlement in the near future. In Spain, five years
after the transition, the socialists won the elections, something unthinkable
for many back in 1977. Similarly in Turkey, despite all predictions, in just a
few years the old political class believed to have been excluded forever was
again in office. In Greece, democracy did make a speedy comeback less than
one year after the failure of the experiment, but this was due to the Cyprus
imbroglio and the ensuing collapse of the alliance between hard-­liners and
the military as an institution. The rapidity of the reaction of the hard-­liners
to the attempted reforma turned the question of whether Greece could have
democratized one year earlier and avoided the traumatic events of 1974 into
historical speculation. The nature of the dictatorship of the colonels posed
severe obstacles to its own self-­transformation. Nevertheless, the reason that
in Greece democracy did not come out of tyranny in 1973 is also largely due
to the actors’ choices. It would take four more years for the Spanish reforma
to set the paradigmatic case of transition in democratization studies.

37. Huntington, 190.