Introduction: A Note on Populism in Crisis-ridden Greece.

• Author: Ifantis, Kostas
• Position: Essay

I

This is a collection of essays on Greece during a crisis that has already lasted more than eight years. A group of scholars discusses several aspects of the grand failure that is Greece since 2009. It is by no means a comprehensive treatise of what went so wrong and why a country that is still among the most developed and wealthy in the world cannot bounce back, reform itself, and deliver the public goods to its citizens. Although it is not explicit, a careful reading of the papers reveals an underlying theme. A populist wave finally swept Greece in early 2015 and nearly destroyed the old political guard. The post-Junta political, social and economic consensus that served as a bulwark for rapid democratization and modernization came under enormous pressure from extreme right and extreme left bullies. Civil War discourse and oratory was used to target political opponents and pseudo-revolutionary voluntarism was offered as the anti-European and anti-elite solution to the country's misery. The justified rage became violent outbursts with the agents of populism barely hiding their satisfaction.

Populism has long been a contested concept. Although the academic literature is abundant it remains ambiguous in so far as it is hard to get a consensus on whether 'it is a creed, a style, a political strategy, a marketing ploy, or some combination of the above.' (1) Whether it is Donald Trump with his America First', or Nigel Farage with his Brexit zealotry, Marie Le Pen, Pepe Grillo, Victor Orban or Alexis Tsipras, populists emerge as defenders of the underprivileged, the avengers and the vigilantes who shall punish the corrupt systemic elites. In reality they are all demagogues who prey on the hardship and the despair of those most hit by the crisis. Although it would be wrong to dismiss the anxieties and anger of those who have flocked to Trump or overwhelmingly voted No in a mockeryof-democracy referendum in the Summer of 2015 in Greece, populist demagogues in the West brought to the fore the parochial and undemocratic, authoritarian conviction that politics should be an expression of the "general will" of the people as they alone can represent it against the 'corrupt elite'.

In Autumn 2016, Niall Ferguson explained the populist surge in the Western World as a backlash against globalization. (2) He described a recipe for populism with just five ingredients, based on historical experience. The first of these ingredients is a rise in immigration. Actual or perceived, it matters not. What does matter is the stimulant in the ever-present xenophobic attitudes in sizeable parts of the society. The second ingredient is an increase in inequality. It is well documented that although globalization has lifted hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty, the global economy has recently regained the heights of inequality that were last seen in the pre-World War I period. The third ingredient is the perception of corruption. For a populist backlash, people have to start believing that the political elites are corrupted. As a fourth ingredient the recipe requires a major upheaval in the form of a major financial crisis that would further marginalize the poor and gravely threaten the wellbeing of the middle class. A financial crisis followed by a prolonged period of depression with skyrocketing unemployment provides the most fertile ground for a populist drive. For Ferguson the fifth is the flammable ingredient. It is that demagogue who would react vituperatively and explosively against all the others. (3) Ferguson in his historical assessment of populism cautions that it;

is not just a form of political entertainment. History suggests otherwise (...). It suggests that men who threaten to restrict immigration--as well as to impose tariffs and to discourage capital export, as populists generally do--mean what they say. Indeed, populists are under a special compulsion to enact what they pledge (...). Of course, populists are bound eventually to disappoint their supporters. For populism is a toxic brew as well as an intoxicating one. Populists nearly always make life miserable for whichever minorities they chose to scapegoat, but they seldom make life much better for the people whose ire they whip up. Whatever the demagogues may promise--and they always promise "jam today"--populism tends to have significantly more economic costs than benefits. (4) There has been without a doubt a broad populist upsurge in the West. Indeed, populism is making a comeback in Europe, if not in other parts of the world such as the United States or the Philippines, to name a few countries...