Polarized Bipartism

Abstract

Patronage across the social board would not have been feasible without the development of an additional mechanism for the distribution of state-related benefits. Such was the system of polarized bipartism that developed in Greece after 1981, featuring a two-party format and distinctly polarizing mechanics. For almost three decades thereafter, the unusual party system ensured that the two major populist parties regularly alternated in state power. It also explains the ‘strategic’ rather than ideological nature of political polarization in Greece.’