The Greek concept of “Metapolitefsi,” as the period after the restoration of democracy in 1974 is called, is a puzzle. The public debate about whether it that historical cycle has ended or not recurs frequently, with the goalpost that demarcates the playing field constantly moving. And even if there could be – which there is not – an agreement on “from then, until then,” the picture is further complicated by the question of its content.
Schematically, the Left identifies it with the dynamics of democratization, while the Right with Greece’s European trajectory and the decisions of political figures. This issue obviously does not only concern historians and political scientists. It also permeates political discourse. The search for a new beginning – a decisive break with the past – has fuelled, at different times, the vision of a “new Metapolitefsi”. An internal break, that is, in the path of the Third Hellenic Republic.
I will not go into detail in describing the “genealogy” of the relevant discussion. However, I recall that in July 2014 the then-Prime Minister Antonis Samaras signed an article published in Kathimerini with the title “The new Metapolitefsi has already begun.” In it, Samaras formulated a historical analogy: in 1974 the government of national unity ensured the smooth transition from potential chaos to political stability; forty years later, another coalition government – under him – had achieved the transition from the misadventure of the economic crisis to a new period of stability. However, it was not limited to this. The historical analogy was linked to the dominant discourse of the time that saw the course of the Republic as moving from “success” to “failure”: in 1974 Greece was entering a trajectory of prosperity that was canceled by the “twin carcinoma of populism and statism” which led to the economic crisis. In the mind of Samaras, the “new metapolitefsi” was picking up the thread of success that had been cut somewhere in 1981 – when PASOK first shot to power.
