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A MODERN TRAGEDY? INSTITUTIONAL

CAUSES AND DEMOCRATIC
CONSEQUENCES OF THE GREEK CRISIS
Yannis Theocharis & Jan W. van Deth
Published online: 23 Feb 2015.

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INSTITUTIONAL CAUSES AND DEMOCRATIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE GREEK CRISIS, Representation,
DOI: 10.1080/00344893.2015.1011464

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 A MODERN TRAGEDY? INSTITUTIONAL
CAUSES AND DEMOCRATIC
CONSEQUENCES OF THE GREEK CRISIS

Yannis Theocharis and Jan W. van Deth

Economic and political developments in Greece have been at the forefront of the international mass
media coverage of the European financial and economic crises. Contrary to fashionable interpretations
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of the malaise, our findings suggest that the main causes of the many ‘crises’ hitting the country are
social and political, rather than economic or financial. Employing the ‘institutional theory of general-
ised trust’, we examine the roots of the current crises in political corruption, confidence in institutions
and interpersonal trust. Data show that, for nearly two decades, Greece has consistently ranked last in
Europe on almost all indicators for trust, confidence and corruption. The analysis pinpoints civic patho-
genies that require immediate action. We suggest a number of policy measures that provide a starting
point for further developing more concrete public policy solutions on how citizens’ trust and Greek civil
society can be strengthened in order to obtain lasting societal, political and economic improvements.

Prologue
In Greece there are numerous groups that act like the Vikings, in the sense that they grab any-
thing they can while roaming freely through various aspects of social and economic activity.
(Mitsopoulos and Pelagidis 2011: 8)

After systematically looting their own treasury, in a breathtaking binge of tax evasion, bribery,
and creative accounting spurred on by Goldman Sachs, Greeks are sure of one thing: they
can’t trust their fellow Greeks. (Lewis 2010: 1)

Small European countries rarely attract as much constant mainstream media attention as
Greece has over the last years. Starting in late 2009, fears spread that the unfolding ‘Greek
tragedy’, which involved serious concerns that the country would be unable to meet its
debt obligations, would spiral out of control and trigger a European sovereign debt crisis
(The Economist 2010). Amid rumours of impending bankruptcy, and in exchange for multibil-
lion Euro bailouts, the Greek government signed a series of memoranda with the International
Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Union (the so-called troika) that
committed it to tough austerity measures.
Greek citizens reacted strongly. The country witnessed massive and often violent social
unrest, including mass demonstrations, strikes and riots; occupying public institutions; and
committing acts of civil disobedience such as refusing to pay road tolls, transport fares, or
property and emergency taxes. Already by the end of 2011, the austerity measures triggered
a number of alarming social reactions, including a record rise in unemployment (Reuters 2013);
an alarming increase in poverty levels, crime and homelessness (The Independent 2011;

Representation, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00344893.2015.1011464
# 2015 McDougall Trust, London
 2 YANNIS THEOCHARIS AND JAN W. VAN DETH

Institute for Social & Economic Research 2011); a dramatic rise in suicide rates (Smith 2011);
intense ideological polarisation and the steep growth of populist and neo-fascist forces
(Ellinas 2013). The collapse of the economy and the tearing of the social fabric signalled the
end of the traditional two-party political system. At the time of writing, after six consecutive
years of recession which led to the shrinking of the Greek economy by a quarter, and unem-
ployment rising to a record of nearly 28% (the highest in the EU), the first tentative signs of an
economic recovery are making the headlines along with hopes that the long road to recovery
has begun (New York Times 2014).
During these six years, a wave of severe criticism and anger has been launched by the
Greek public towards not only the government, but also the entire political establishment
(Pappas and O’Malley 2014). Remarkably, negative attitudes towards the political system
have been uniform among the public (Rüdig and Karyotis 2014); regardless of their political
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affiliation, members of parliament have been threatened, violently attacked, hissed at,
hooted at and ridiculed (Reuters 2011). Many in the mainstream press (and thousands of
people on Internet newspaper forums, blogs and social media) raised questions first about
the democratic legitimacy of the memoranda, and then about the strength of the fragile
coalition that came into power after two dead-lock elections in May– June 2012. Although
the coalition’s stability was not seriously challenged for a while, the opposition party Syriza
won the 2014 EU election, leaving New Democracy (ND), the main governing party, second
followed by the neo-fascist Golden Dawn.
The vast majority of the Greek population holds politicians responsible for the problems
and, having completely lost loyalty to the state (Pappas and O’Malley 2014), also attributes the
crisis to more fundamental democratic deficits (Lyrintzis 2011). In protest theatres and in the
press, journalists, intellectuals, veteran politicians and citizens loudly express their discontent
with the quality of the country’s institutions, including the justice, welfare and educational
systems; the police; the parliament and political parties. This dissatisfaction has been especially
directed towards the main representatives of these institutions which took the form of what
Pappas and O’Malley call ‘political Luddism’, denoting the public’s massive and oftentimes
violent turn against an establishment that is blamed to have stopped providing public
goods (2014: 4). The resentment of the political establishment was also expressed by a move-
ment of loosely organised ‘indignant citizens’ (Aganaktism1́noi) that, according to polls, were
viewed positively by the majority of Greeks.
Greek citizens’ anger, distrust in the austerity dogma and aggressiveness towards the
country’s political elite and political institutions have been much discussed in the context of
the current economic and financial crises. But are the anger, distrust and hostility products
of these crises? Did a series of extremely tough austerity measures, combined with an increas-
ing distrust of the political elites’ mismanagement of the crises, discredit the political establish-
ment and lead to feelings of disillusionment, alienation and hatred towards politicians? Or is it,
as Greek political scientist Lyrintzis has argued elsewhere, the ‘advent of a foretold’ political
crisis (2011: 11)?
Although the manifest causes of the current crisis are financial and economic (Mitsopou-
los and Pelagidis 2011), the ‘advent’ of the problems has more to do with social and political
developments under way for quite some time (Pappas 2013). In this article, we focus on the
role of social and political trust as well as the state of civil society. Data from the European
Social Survey (ESS), the World Values Survey (WVS) and Transparency International help us
show that, first, for more than a decade, Greece has consistently ranked last in Europe on
almost all indicators for trust and confidence. We examine the roots of Greek citizens’ lack
 A MODERN TRAGEDY 3

of trust in political institutions and in each other, and discuss the disastrous consequences of
this development for the functioning of these institutions as transparent and essential prere-
quisites for a vibrant democracy. Second, although our analyses do not claim to describe a con-
crete causal order between various types of (dis)trust in institutions and the political elite, they
allow us to clearly pinpoint civic pathogenies that still require immediate policy action. Hence,
we suggest a number of policy measures that reform-minded politicians should build upon to
strengthen interpersonal and institutional trust as well as the civil society in order to obtain
lasting societal, political and economic improvements.

Parodus
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The Greek ‘Partitocracia’

The structure and features of the current political system have their roots in the period of
the establishment of the modern Greek state, but mainly took shape after the military junta
during the establishment of the Third Greek Republic (Pappas 2003; Paraskevopoulos 2007;
Sotiropoulos 2004). The seven-year-long junta, which ended in 1974, led to the development
of a democratic political system largely dominated by two major parties, the centre-left Pan-
hellenistic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and the centre-right ND, followed by the smaller
left-wing (Synaspismos) and communist (KKE) parties (Lyrintzis 1983; Pappas 2003; for a
recent comprehensive overview see Pappas 2013). Since then, the Greek political arena has
been characterised by the alternation in power between PASOK and ND. A common feature
of the two major populist parties has been the organisation and development of large patron-
age networks, through which political parties were ‘exploited in order to penetrate the state
machine as well as the organised interests and parts of civil society’ (Lyrintzis 2011: 3; see
also Di Mascio et al. 2010). This feature included the creation of a clientelist system, according
to which ‘the voters’ loyalty benefits the party rather than individual politicians, and the party
in turn allocates favours through its organisation to both individual voters and collective
groups’ (Lyrintzis 2011: 4; Lyrintzis 1983; Mitsopoulos and Pelagidis 2011; Pappas and Asima-
kopoulou, 2012).1
This system fostered a rigid, confrontational PASOK – ND political culture in which, after
(re)gaining power, each party repaid favours to its respective clientele, keeping ‘shut any
“windows of opportunity” for civil society development’ (Sotiropoulos 2004: 17; Mavrogordatos
1993; see also Mouzelis 1978, 2008). The design and implementation of policy that was based
on electoral and narrow party interests, rather than rational economic/functional criteria, led to
massive growth of the public sector due to the major parties’ strategy of creating and staffing
public institutions, such as universities, hospitals, public utility organisations and administrative
services. As a result the state attained a central position in maintaining privileged positions and
state reformism was resisted for many decades by the vast majority of the Greek public, con-
cerned that they may lose their privileges.
‘The end result was an oversized and overcrowded public sector subservient to the pol-
itical parties whose size kept increasing’ (Lyrintzis 2011: 5), leading to the penetration and
control of almost all areas of public life.2 This process weakened formal civil society (Mavrogor-
datos 1993, 1997; Mouzelis 1978; Tsoukalas 1995), which has been characterised as relatively
underdeveloped, poorly organised, with few weak civil society organisations and dominated
by a powerful government (Jones et al. 2008; Sotiropoulos and Karamagioli 2006).3 According
to Lyrintzis (2011), these developments, which were occasionally overshadowed by economic
 4 YANNIS THEOCHARIS AND JAN W. VAN DETH

scandals involving leading PASOK and ND members, were complemented by the further
failure of the political system to introduce meaningful and effective reforms in sectors such
as education, health, local government, social security and transport. The terms ‘Partitocrazia’
and ‘bureaucratic clientelism’ have been used to describe Greece’s slow, inefficient political
system that is characterised by cronyism, patronage, corruption and clientelism (Di Mascio
et al. 2010; Lyrintzis 2011); the system itself has constituted the main obstacle to the develop-
ment of a healthy civil society.

Institutions and Generalised Trust

The rise of Greece’s ‘Partitocracia’ and the country’s path to financial and economic col-
lapse have been characterised by the continuous obstruction of the development of a strong
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and independent civil society. Yet a healthy civil society is indispensable for a vibrant democracy.
Putnam, in particular, revived this idea in his seminal works Making Democracy Work (1994) and
Bowling Alone (2000). In his study of the Italian democracy, he famously concluded: ‘Good gov-
ernment in Italy is a by-product of singing groups and soccer clubs, not prayer’ (1994: 176). The
core idea of this theory is that networks have value: that is, that social contacts can either boost
or hinder the productivity of individuals or groups (Putnam 2000: 19) and that ‘frequent inter-
action among diverse sets of people tends to produce norms of generalized reciprocity’
(Putnam 2000: 21). One of the most important assets of a society characterised by generalised
reciprocity is that the production of collective goods is more efficient than in a distrustful society.
Putnam’s claims have been confirmed in various studies, which show that high social
trust and confidence in public institutions are associated with positive outcomes such as
stable democracy (Inglehart 1999), low levels of corruption (della Porta 2000) and a low
degree of economic inequality (Uslaner 2002; Rothstein and Uslaner 2005; see also Newton
and Norris 2000). However, a number of studies failed to support the neo-Tocquevillean
idea that networks facilitate personal trust that, in turn, should result in political confidence
and a willingness to participate (see Fine 2010; van Deth et al. 2007; Zmerli and Newton
2008). Instead, plausible arguments have been put forward that reverse the causal ordering:
the development of trust and the willingness to support democratic orientations are conse-
quences and not causes of ‘good government’.
Several authors have presented a more sophisticated conceptualisation of performance
that emphasises the quality of government in terms of its normative principles and the way
policies are implemented. For instance, Sztompka stresses the idea that good government
does not depend on trust but, on the contrary, on ‘institutionalised distrust’, when used spar-
ingly. In his view, good governance facilitates trust among people by institutionalising distrust
at many levels (1998). Along a very similar vein, but stressing the moral foundations of demo-
cratic institutions more generally, Offe argues that institutions ‘provide normative reference
points and values that can be relied upon’ (1999: 70). As a consequence, ‘it is this implied nor-
mative meaning of institutions and the moral plausibility I assume it will have for others which
allows me to trust those that are involved in the same institutions’ (Offe 1999: 70).
The most comprehensive approach to the causal linkages between trust and democracy
has been presented by Rothstein and Stolle (2008), who put forward a theory that combines
theoretical and empirical arguments. First, they note that the generation of trust and norms of
reciprocity does not necessarily apply to organisations and groups that produce only in-group
trust or actual distrust of out-groups (see also Stolle 2002). Second, they argue that there is
insufficient evidence to explain how trust generated between members of a group or
 A MODERN TRAGEDY 5

network can be transferred to the outside world. Finally, they are concerned that empirical evi-
dence showing a causal flow from joining to trusting is hard to come. Their conclusion is that
connectivity, associations and social networks may very well be good in themselves for a great
many reasons, but they do not seem to produce interpersonal trust and wider norms of reci-
procity that benefit the whole society, as neo-Tocquevillean theory implies. Alternatively, Roth-
stein and Stolle explore an ‘institutional theory of generalised trust’, in which the state and
public policies play a central role, distinguishing between institution-centred and attitudinal
approaches.
The central idea of institution-centred approaches is that government policies and politi-
cal institutions create, channel and influence citizens’ capacity to develop broad-based and
out-reaching cooperative ties and to establish social trust. According to this theory, trust is
heavily influenced by (the effects of) government institutions and policies. Attitudinal
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approaches examine the relationships between people’s confidence in political institutions

(political trust) and their trust in others (social or generalised trust). Generalised trust is seen
as a predictor of political trust—in which case it becomes a source for institutional outcomes
(it can help build effective social and political institutions that can help governments perform
effectively, which in turn encourages confidence in civic institutions). The institutional –
structural approach that Rothstein and Stolle offer intends to address the limitations of
these two approaches. The basic argument is that governments can generate trust between
people if citizens consider government actions to be trustworthy. This approach highlights
how the causal mechanism between institutional arrangements on the one hand and trust-
worthy behaviour on the other works to improve and stabilise democracy. In efforts to collapse
the notion of ‘government’ into institutions, Rothstein and Stolle suggest a model that indi-
cates (a) which political institutions are the most important for generating trustworthy behav-
iour and (b) how the causal mechanism between these institutions’ characteristics and
generalised trust can be understood.
Rothstein and Stolle argue that understanding political confidence in institutions
requires a differentiation between institutions on the representational side of the political
system (parties, politicians, parliament and cabinet; that is, institutions with mainly distributive
tasks) and those on the implementation side (police, hospitals, internal revenue services, social
workers, etc.: institutions with mainly regulative tasks). On the representational side, one of the
key roles for institutions is to be partisan; confidence in institutions here is created through
partisanship (people who support party institutions are likely to have confidence in them,
while those who oppose them are likely to report a lack of confidence). However, there is
no causal mechanism linking this type of trust to generalised trust. The institutions on the
implementation side of the political system, conversely, are important for the creation, nurtur-
ing and maintenance of generalised trust. They reveal messages about societies’ overall prin-
ciples and norms, which in turn mould and shape people’s beliefs and values about how the
institutions operate. These influences vary in the degree to which these institutions represent
the normative ideals of impartiality, equality before the law, respect for human rights, equality of
opportunity and efficiency. Rothstein and Stolle suggest that if such ideals guide the operative
procedures of the implementing institutions, citizens will have reason to trust them (2008). In
particular, welfare state provisions that are provided as ‘universal forms of public service’ based
on equal access and general availability will reduce feelings of exploitation by fellow citizens
and increase people’s willingness to contribute to the production of collective goods. Opposed
effects are most likely to emerge when ‘selective forms of public service’ dominate welfare
state provisions (Rothstein and Stolle 2008: 290 – 2).
 6 YANNIS THEOCHARIS AND JAN W. VAN DETH

If implementing institutions in a democracy act according to the principles of fairness

and efficiency, there is reason to believe that most people in that society ‘play by the rules’
and therefore can be trusted. Reversing the argument—institutions do not act according to
fairness and people do not play by the rules—it is reasonable to expect that a deteriorating,
biased, corrupt and inefficient system generally goes hand in hand with low levels of general-
ised trust. Indeed, Rothstein and Stolle’s (2008) findings confirm that there is less generalised
trust in countries with predominantly corrupt institutions than in countries with impartial, fair
and universal institutions. They conclude that trust rests on the quality of government insti-
tutions: citizens make strong connections between the fairness of institutions and generalised
trust at both the micro and macro levels.
At first glance, the ‘institutional theory of generalised trust’ seems to be an excellent way
of explaining Greece’s descent into the present crisis. According to Rothstein and Stolle, gov-
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ernment policies and political institutions create, channel and influence the amount and type
of social trust as well as the development of cooperative ties. If citizens systematically experi-
ence particularistic (discriminatory, corrupt, etc.) behaviour from street-level bureaucrats as the
main representatives of implementing institutions—Greece was, after all, a state that has been
shown to display the highest rates of party patronage politics in Europe (Kopecky et al. 2012)—
they are likely to conclude that if these people cannot be trusted, then ‘most other people’ in
society cannot be trusted either. As plausible as this explanation of the developments in
Greece may appear, a critical evaluation of available empirical evidence is required. By
looking for evidence at the macro level (Do Greek citizens systematically experience discrimina-
tory or corrupt behaviour from public institutions?), and narrowing down our tests with evidence
at the micro level (Do Greek citizens trust public institutions and political institutions? Do they trust
their fellow citizens?), the political and social determinants of the Greek crisis can be explored
more extensively.

Corrupted Institutions?
The Greek political system is characterised by a lack of transparency and accountability
of the mandate holders in the executive and legislative branches of government (Mitsopoulos
and Pelagidis 2011). As a result, not only almost everyone participates, willingly or unwillingly,
in the country’s shadow economy, but many of those protesting against the Greek state during
the crisis ‘had thrived on short-term handouts from the state and believed in long-term prom-
ises while resisting all kinds of liberal reforms’ (Pappas and O’Malley 2014: 15).
One way to explore this empirically is to look at whether, in the eyes of its citizens,
Greek institutions perform unfairly and are corrupt. We use the World Bank’s measure of
corruption, which dates back to 1996 and ranks countries according to ‘perceptions of
the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and
grand forms of corruption, as well as “capture” of the state by elites and private interests’
(World Bank 2014). These data are complemented with Transparency International’s Corrup-
tion Perceptions Index from 2001 to 2013. The methods used by both organisations are
suitable for our assessment because the rankings are based exclusively on citizens’ percep-
tions of corruption. As evident in Table 1, from 1996 onwards, where evidence is available,
Greece is usually ranked as the most (or second most) corrupt country in the Eurozone.
Equally important is the fact that perceptions of corruption in Greece become stronger
as we get closer to the beginning of the crisis. Moreover, Greece seems to have been drift-
ing further away from the other European countries over the years (although a small
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TABLE 1
Greece’s ranking against 20 European countries according to Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (2002–2012) and the World Bank (1996–2011)

1996 1998 2000 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

TI rank for Greece n/a n/a n/a 19th/20 19th/20 19th/20 20th/20 20th/20 20th/20 20th/20 20th/20 20th/20 20th/20 20th/20 20th/20
Greece scorea n/a n/a n/a 4.2 4.3 4.3 4.3 4.4 4.6 4.7 3.8 3.5 3.4 3.6 4.0
Dev. from EU average n/a n/a n/a 3.16 3.14 3.17 3.26 3.16 2.91 2.72 3.56 3.79 3.92 3.60 3.20
World Bank rank for Greece 18th/20 17th/20 17th/20 19th/20 19th/20 18th/20 19th/20 19th/20 19th/20 20th/20 19th/20 20th/20 20th/20 20th/20 n/a
Greece scoreb 0.33 1.06 0.83 0.44 0.42 0.49 0.38 0.36 0.26 0.10 0.05 20.12 20.16 20.25 n/a
Dev. from EU average 1.20 0.56 0.74 1.07 1.10 1.00 1.06 1.13 1.21 1.35 1.36 1.49 1.60 1.20 n/a

Note: The above evaluations range from 1 ¼ least corrupt European country to 20 ¼ most corrupt European country.
Source: For Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, see: http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi. For the World Bank’s
Worldwide Governance Indicators on control of corruption, see: http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.asp.
a
Scored on a scale from 0 ¼ country is perceived as highly corrupt to 10 ¼ country is perceived as very clean.
b
Normalized scores with higher values corresponding to less corruption.

A MODERN TRAGEDY
7
 8 YANNIS THEOCHARIS AND JAN W. VAN DETH

change seems to have occurred in 2012 and 2013); whereas the absolute difference
between the World Bank indicators for corruption in European countries and Greece was
1.20 in 1996 (whereby 2.5 is high corrupt and +2.5 very clean), this figure increased to
1.60 in 2011 (but has fallen to 1.20 in 2012). In a similar way, the indicators from Transpar-
ency International (whereby 0 is highly corrupt and 10 very clean) show that Greece was
3.12 scale points away from the European average in 2001, but 3.92 in 2011. The most
recent data (2013) show that Greece’s distance from the European average has been
reduced from the levels of 2011, deviating now by 3.20 scale points (still holding,
however, the last position). Figure 1 shows the differences between the scores for per-
ceived corruption in Europe and Greece for the two measures considered. For both time
series, the trend lines clearly indicate that the gap between European countries and
Greece has been widening—save the last couple of years where results probably reflect
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the outcome of the government’s efforts to respond to the economic crisis by, among
other things, cracking down on corruption.
The evidence shows that corruption in Greece is not simply a sporadic and occasional
phenomenon, but one that is extremely prevalent and perennial. Greek citizens have not
only been clearly aware of this corruption, but it has also been an integral part of the state
which was the main provider of benefits and resources through clientelist practices and, con-
sequently thereafter, the public’s immediate primary target of hostility when it outlived its
former utility functions (Pappas and O’Malley 2014: 15). Greece, thus, progressively became
an exceptional case in Europe. Following the ‘institutional theory of generalised trust’, the con-
sequence of this development must be that Greek citizens are distrustful not only of their
public institutions, but also of each other.

FIGURE 1
Development of perceived corruption: Greece’s deviations from the European average
(1996– 2013)
Source: The World Bank (1996– 2012) and Transparency International (2001– 2013).
 A MODERN TRAGEDY 9

Institutional (Dis)trust?
Table 2 shows Greece’s ranking of citizens’ trust in their country’s political and imple-
menting institutions compared to 16 other European countries. As can be seen from the
table, the overall level of trust in institutions among Greeks is low and gets even lower as
we move towards 2010. With regard to trust in implementing institutions, data are limited;
we can base our analyses only on data gathered by the WVS in 1999. Based on these data,
Greeks were by far the most distrustful of institutions among all Europeans (but they placed
relatively high trust in the justice system, ranking 8th out of 17 European countries—not
shown in table); the levels of trust in the educational system, the social security and health
systems and the country’s civil services are instructive (17th out of 17 in all cases, not
shown in table). The press is another example—only British citizens were more distrustful of
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the press than the Greeks. According to ESS data, moreover, Greeks trusted the legal system
and the police in 2002, ranking 4th and 10th, respectively, and deviating by 0.81 and 0.08
scale points from the EU average. However, in 2010, this deviation declined to 21.38 and
21.62 scale points from the EU average (Table 2). Despite the fact that Greece was not
included in the latest wave of the survey, the ESS provides much more recent comparative evi-
dence than any other source, mainly with regards to trust in political institutions. Based on
2002 data, out of 17 countries Greeks were the 11th most trustful of parliament and the
14th most trustful of politicians, deviating by 0.22 and 0.58 scale points from the EU
average (Table 2). The gaps widened further in 2010, when Greeks deviated by 2.38, 2.25
and 2.22 scale points from the EU average in trust in the parliament, politicians and political
parties, respectively—ranking last in all categories.
It is conceivable that the recent financial and economic crisis exacerbated distrust in pol-
itical institutions. Although our analysis does not allow us to claim a direct effect of the crisis on
political trust, we can offer some descriptive empirical evidence to support this potential devel-
opment. In Figure 2, we use the average development of real GDP growth before (average
2002 – 2005) and during/after (2007– 2009) the crisis as an indicator of the intensity of the
crisis and plot it alongside political trust, focusing on a number of European countries for
which data are available. The averages take care of potential naturally occurring fluctuations
of the economy while the chosen time frames make sure that economic development is
seen as a ‘cause’ of the respective trust indicators (in terms of their temporal succession). To
measure political trust, we use the mean of the five ESS variables frequently used to
measure political trust (they also strongly load on one underlying dimension). Pre-crisis level
of political trust is the average of 2004 – 2006, while post-crisis level is represented by the
values from 2010. Pre-crisis levels are represented with circles while post-crisis levels are rep-
resented with diamonds. Filled circles/diamonds denote an increasing trend while hollow
circles/diamonds show a decreasing trend. Although the results depicted in the graphs
show a rather ‘conservative’ representation, the drop in political trust within this period is
rather limited in most countries. The evident exception is Greece whose position moves
from the middle right side of the graph to the left corner, indicating both a large drop in econ-
omic growth accompanied by a drop in political trust.
The general view is clearly not very bright, with Greece ranking close to the bottom in
almost all dimensions of institutional trust. That makes the regression to the lowest level of
trust in the fifth wave of ESS data less striking. Indeed, with the exception of trust in the
legal system, Greece ranks as the most distrustful society, in terms of trust in institutions. It
is indicative that when Greeks were asked by the ESS interviewers in 2010 how they would
 10
YANNIS THEOCHARIS AND JAN W. VAN DETH
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TABLE 2
Greece’s position in Europe: citizens’ perceptions of trust in political and implementing institutions (1999 –2010)

Greece’s position in: WVS 1999 rank Dev. from EU ESS 2002 Dev. from EU ESS 2004 Dev. from EU ESS 2008 Dev. from EU ESS 2010 Dev. From EU

Political institutions
Trust in parliament 17th/17 7.93 11th/17 20.22 9th/18 20.03 17th/18 21.37 18th/18 22.38
Trust in politicians n/a 14th/17 20.58 11th/18 20.22 17th/18 21.54 18th/18 22.25
Trust in political parties n/a n/a n/a 11th/18 20.34 17th/18 21.46 18th/18 22.22
Implementing institutions
Trust in legal system n/a 4th/17 +0.81 10th/18 +0.08 14th/18 20.71 15th/18 21.38
Trust in police 17th/17 10th/17 +0.08 10th/17 20.14 17th/18 21.41 17th/18 21.62

Source: ESS 2002– 2010. Results were calculated based on the average scores achieved by participants in each country in response to the question ‘Please tell me on a
score of 0– 10 how much you personally trust each of the institutions I read out. 0 means you do not trust an institution at all, and 10 means you have complete trust.’
Countries participating in the 2002–2010 waves: Germany, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Spain, France, Ireland, Estonia, Slovakia,
Slovenia, Greece, Portugal, the UK, Italy, Austria and Cyprus. Data weighted for sample-design effects.
 A MODERN TRAGEDY 11

place their trust in politicians on a scale of 0– 10, where 0 indicated no trust at all and 10 indi-
cated complete trust, 96.4% of the responses ranged from 0 to 5 and only two (!) individuals
declared complete trust. The same striking pattern can be observed in questions regarding
trust in parliament (92.5% scored between 0 and 5) and trust in political parties (96.5%
scored between 0 and 5).
Although satisfaction with the way institutions work should not be conflated with trust in
the institutions themselves, evidence from the ESS regarding Greek citizens’ level of satisfaction
with the functioning of various institutions, the economy and democracy is instructive. Not sur-
prisingly for citizens who have very little or no trust at all in their country’s institutions, satisfac-
tion with the abovementioned also follows the expected negative course (Figure 3). With the
exception of the functioning of democracy, in which they ranked among the most satisfied in
2002 and 2004 (but last in 2010), Greeks have consistently been among the most dissatisfied Eur-
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opeans with the state of the economy, education and health services since 2002, hitting rock
bottom in the last two categories in 2010. Here, too, the country is drifting away from its Euro-
pean allies. In 2002, Greece’s level of satisfaction was consistently below the European average,
deviating by 1.31, 1.26 and 1.04 scale points in satisfaction with the state of the economy, edu-
cation and health services, respectively. The country drifted further away in 2010, deviating by
3.03, 2.67 and 2.70 from the European averages in these categories, respectively.
The evidence from three different cross-national and longitudinal studies with national
representative samples shows that citizens’ dissatisfaction with public (especially partisan)
institutions in Greece did not start to erode as a result of the current crisis, but has consistently
been extremely low—and has been on its way down for quite some time.

FIGURE 2
Development of political trust in several European countries before and during/after the
crisis (measured as real GDP growth)
Source: Authors’ calculations based on ESS (political trust) and World Bank (real GDP
growth rate) data.
 12 YANNIS THEOCHARIS AND JAN W. VAN DETH
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FIGURE 3
Greek citizens’ satisfaction with various institutions (2002– 2010)
Source: ESS 2002 – 2010. Average scores achieved by participants in response to the
question: ‘On the whole how satisfied are you with the present state of . . . ?’ (scored on
scale ranging from 0 to 10; high scores indicate higher levels of satisfaction). Data
weighted for sample-design effects.

Interpersonal (Dis)trust?
Figure 4 shows Greek citizens’ perceptions of trust towards their fellow citizens based on
ESS data. In all three questions, respondents ranked their level of perceived trust in others on a
scale from 0 to 10. The results provide a clear picture of the state of interpersonal trust in
Greece and the rest of Europe. With the exception of the question about trust in dealing
with other people asked in 2008 (in which the Portuguese indicated that they were more dis-
trustful) and 2010 (in which the Portuguese, Cypriots and Slovenians indicated that they were
more distrustful), Greeks were consistently the Europeans who trusted their fellow citizens
least (cf. Jones et al. 2008: 178– 9). The Greek population has actually widened the gap with
the rest of Europe in the question ‘most people are looking out for themselves,’ but has some-
what narrowed the gap in the questions about whether people ‘can be trusted’ and whether
people are ‘trying to take advantage of you’. Although the gaps between Greece and Europe
did not widen on these first two indicators, it is clear that the country’s average levels of social
trust are still far below the corresponding figures for any other European country.

Exodus
Although individual-level panel data are lacking, the empirical evidence to explain
Greece’s problems with the ‘institutional theory of generalised trust’ is striking. The main
causes of the Greek collapse are neither restricted to economic or financial developments
 A MODERN TRAGEDY 13
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FIGURE 4
Greek citizens’ perceptions of trust towards others compared with other Europeans (2002–2010)
Source: ESS 2002–2010. Average scores (scales ranging from 0 to 10; high scores indicate higher
levels of trust). Data weighted for sample-design effects.

nor limited to recent events or incidents. Instead, the ongoing deterioration of levels of trust in
fellow citizens and in democratic political institutions seems to be a more fundamental
problem; one related to the particular shape and long-term functioning of these institutions
(with the Greek public’s tolerance and cooperation). As Pappas, who accurately depicts the
current crisis as the outcome of Greece’s particular system of populist democracy, stresses:
‘Greece’s recent failure . . . was not caused by a lack of inclusive political and economic insti-
tutions but rather happened in spite of them’ (Pappas 2013: 32). Based on this evidence, it is
hardly surprising that the Greek society, long diseased by corruption and characterised by
such extremely low levels of interpersonal and institutional trust, has developed symptoms
of civic and political disintegration that are unlike those experienced by countries quite
similar to Greece in terms of their economic condition, cultural background, social compo-
sition, ideological profiling and party system dynamics (see, e.g., the enlightening comparison
of the public’s response to crisis by the Greek and Irish publics in Pappas and O’Malley 2014).
The evidence presented in this paper helps put the pieces of the puzzle together and
provides a heuristic guide to further exploring the developments in Greek citizens’ trust in
democratic institutions. If this approach is correct, then intense institutional engineering
should be undertaken to strengthen civil society and social capital. Our diagnoses identify
the lack of government activities based on explicit rules of fairness, transparency and equality
as the main cause of the Greek malaise, complementing studies identifying the lack of state
provision of other basic public goods and other state-related services (Pappas and O’Malley
2014); any successful resolution should take this finding very seriously.
Six years after the beginning of the economic and financial crisis, Greek mandate holders
continue to not only operate in an environment of weak institutions, but also in a political
 14 YANNIS THEOCHARIS AND JAN W. VAN DETH

system that inherently suppresses transparency. In addition, by cooperating with various

cliques that ensure their interests remain protected, structural reforms that would shift this
power configuration and benefit the Greek society as a whole continue to be avoided. At
the same time, reform-minded politicians face a deeply rooted status quo on the defensive,
and citizens who have not only lost trust in the entire political elite, but also in each other.
This environment makes the work of reform-minded politicians a Sisyphean task. However,
the social turbulence and intense political instability created by the current crisis also offer pol-
itical opportunities and possibilities for reform-minded politicians. The phrase ‘never let a crisis
go to waste’, famously attributed to the former White House Chief of Staff and current mayor of
Chicago Rahm Emanuel, is indeed appropriate in this context.
Effective policy proposals have to be based on a distinction between symptom-oriented
and cause-oriented measures. Although this paper does not claim to be a firm and elaborate
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policy guide, the results of our empirical analyses allow us to offer some suggestions for policy
measures concerned with the functioning of Greece’s government agencies.
First and most important, strict measures are required to assure that contacts between
citizens and government agencies (street-level bureaucrats) explicitly meet the legal standards
of fairness, transparency and equality. Reform-minded politicians can reach this aim by:
. developing extensive training programmes for civil servants to change the way they treat
citizens—in particular, policy officers and civil servants dealing with the implementation
of social welfare and tax measures should be trained on a regular basis;
. enforcing strict regulations of any party-based networks, as well as guarantees for the
independence of implementing institutions;
. enforcing strict laws that punish any abuse of power or malpractice by civil servants and
. enacting strict rules for any interest constellation involving politicians and their relation-
ships with other elites in Greek society.

A second policy area should strive to strengthen Greek civil society. By now, pointing out the
benevolent impact of civil society for a vibrant democracy is merely a platitude, and many pro-
blems in Greece seem to be closely related to the absence of an active and independent civil
society (Paraskevopoulos 2007; Sotiropoulos and Karamagioli 2006). Once again, the current
political instability and public dissatisfaction open up avenues for reform-minded politicians
to support bottom-up changes in the structure of civil society and collaborate with grassroots
organisations. Opportunities in this area include:
. Support the founding and expansion of independent voluntary associations.
. Provide voluntary associations with a strong legal basis that guarantees their indepen-
dence and competencies.
. Transfer at least a part of the implementation of public services to voluntary associations
and public – private partnerships.
. Enforce strict rules to exclude party-based networks in civil society (or make transparency
obligatory).

Finally, in the long run any well-functioning democracy has to safeguard equality and social
justice. According to the ‘institutional theory of generalised trust,’ the principle of welfare pol-
icies that do not single out ‘the poor’ but instead operate on universal principles is crucial for
sustaining long-term political confidence and, consequently, social trust. As the economy
slowly starts to pick up (but the social and political situation remains fragile with polarising,
populist and extremist forces gradually establishing and strengthening themselves), Greece
 A MODERN TRAGEDY 15

cannot afford to wait for the implementation of a system like that and for the reforms required
for the establishment of a modern state.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors are grateful to Peter Obert for the excellent research assistance.

NOTES

1. As Sotiropoulos notes

In the 1970s and the 1980s, at each government turnover, the incoming Cabinet used to
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make sure that peak labour associations would be staffed by pro-government leaders.
This monitoring ‘from above’ was accomplished with the help of an often docile judiciary
which produced court decisions changing the composition of the governing boards of
peak labour associations. Monitoring ‘from above’ was also effected by the Ministry of
Labour which controlled the finances of peak associations. (2004: 18)
2. Clearly, as Lyrintzis (2011: 7) stresses, not all members of the political and/or institutional elite
were corrupt and subservient to patronage networks. Moreover, although corruption in
Greece has been more intense and prevalent than anywhere else in Europe (see analysis
below), during at least the last decade similar symptoms were observed in Italy and other
European countries (della Porta and Vannucci 2007).
3. Some have, however, argued that an ‘informal’ civil society has occasionally shown some
strength (Paraskevopoulos 1998; Sotiropoulos 2004).

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Yannis Theocharis is Senior Research Fellow at the Mannheim Centre for European Social
Research (MZES), University of Mannheim. His research interests are in political partici-
pation, protest politics, new media and social capital.
E-mail: yannis.theocharis@uni-mannheim.de

Jan W. van Deth is Professor of Political Science and International Comparative Social Research
at the University of Mannheim. He has published widely in the field of political engage-
ment, political culture and research methodology. E-mail: jvdeth@uni-mannheim.de