From Transition to Democracy, to the Establishment of Party Democracy

Tür:

Kitap Bölümü

Yazar:

Takis S. Pappas

Yayın yılı:

1998

Yayıncı:

Palgrave Macmillan UK

Dil:

en

The dictatorship that ruled Greece for seven years collapsed in 1974 under the weight of its own deficiencies, failures, and contradictions. From its very inception, the junta of the colonels had failed to institutionalize itself and gain popular legitimacy. The student uprising at the Polytechnic School of Athens in November 1973 caused an internal shake-up of the regime that led to the takeover of power by a group of mostly junior officers who represented the junta hardliners. Having lost its original core leadership, and unable to bid for legitimacy anymore, the regime was increasingly forced to rely on repression. Finally, a junta-inspired irredentist coup against Archbishop Makarios' government of Cyprus brought the invasion of Turkish armed forces to the island to protect the Turkish minority, and resulted in a humiliating Greek debacle.1 The junta crumbled. No one can tell how much longer the military dictatorship would have stayed in power had it not been for this foreign-affairs fiasco, but there can be no doubt at all that it was the Cyprus folly that was the direct cause of the regime's demise.2 It needs emphasizing that the end of the dictatorship was not the result of massive resistance, organized or spontaneous, by the Greek population; nor was it the outcome of successful opposition by any other group or individual — such as the former politicians, an army faction, or the exiled king — that might have provided a politically organized (and more legitimate) al…

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