Yiannis Mavris: We are living in a mock parliamentary democracy

Interview to Vasiliki Siouti

-Many are surprised that Golden Dawn is still rating high in the polls. How do you interpret it? 
Developments have shown how much Golden Dawn has infiltrated the state apparatus, not only the police, but society in general. I believe there has only been a superficial confrontation on the part of the government, which obviously cannot neutralize this phenomenon. It is evident that Golden Dawn’s influence is not superficial, it does not only regard the level at which the “views” of citizens are formed daily. It has passed onto another, deeper level, one which concerns the longer term shaping of society’s perceptions and its ideology. So, it cannot be countered at a the level of public communications, with media campaigns. Maybe not even by repression through the justice system.

-How would you describe the profile of the average Golden Dawn voter?
To begin with, Golden Dawn’s electoral base in the 2012 elections is different to that after the elections. It has distinguishable social, age and geographical characteristics. I would say that its core, its intrinsic nucleus, draws from those strata that traditionally followed the conservative bloc, the Right, with several references, too, to the social bloc that supported the dictatorship regime. This continuation is political and ideological, it is not generational, it is not the same people.

-How do you interpret the rise of neonazism in Greece?
It is obvious that the consequences of the economic crisis decisively affect the shape political forces take. Ideological currents, that marked  the Greek Right during in the period between the wars, the Greek civil war* and the period after that*, are reviving. And it’s not, exclusively, a Greek phenomenon. Such a revival of Fascism and Nazism is not only observed in Greece. It is an element that, in general, characterizes the conjuncture where many European countries find themselves. 

There is a significant political void, a great crisis in regard to political representation and, of course, there is the rupture of the social alliance that supported the bloc of elite classes after the 1967-1974 dictatorship*. All of this allows for the return of ideologies that do not define the post-dictatorship period of parliamentary democracy, but were more dominant during the times of ‘extraordinary’ democracy before the dictatorship. A distinctive example that the developments we are witnessing, is the element of state repression and the strategy of tension. We are living in conditions of virtual parliamentary democracy. This clearly raises the issue of a new, authoritarian statism, that has analogies to the regime in place before the dictatorship.     

-What led, in your view, the government to suddenly move against Golden Dawn, when for more than a year it was allowed to act undisturbed and commit offenses, even in front of TV cameras?    
Golden Dawn, independently of how it was allowed, or how it was used – and it was used indeed – and how Golden Dawn itself favoured the strategy of tension, from a certain point on evolved into an uncontrollable electoral dange risk. A second, and more important element, I believe, is its infiltration into the core of the state apparatus. And I am not only referring to the police. There appears to be infiltration in the armed forces, the secret services, the judiciary, the church. And this is not by chance. 

Moreover, in the beginning at least, Golden Dawn had a tendency of resorting to justice, possibly considering that it could fight its battles there more easily. This transference to the sphere of the judiciary apparatus does not exclude the possibility that the party considered it  a privileged space.  

-In the previous period, when Golden Dawn was acting undisturbed, had the political system underestimated the dangers or was it catering to a certain strategy?  
A strategy of tension is being implemented. Of course, it is not by chance that at the moment a wave of strike actions began, there were certain incidents (in Meligalas, Perama, Keratsini), that in essence totally changed and disoriented the news agenda. After Golden Dawn, nobody was concerned with the strike actions/mobilizations that took place. And of course the prospect of a fall/autumn in this way was removed the prospect of a social tension or explosion, that many feared.   

-Isn’t it a dangerous game, on the one hand to desire normalcy and political stability, so that they take measures, and on the other hand to toy with a strategy of tension?
It is very difficult to gain society’s consent for measures that cause its own destruction. A very well known American journalist used to say that it is very difficult to convince people that your are killing them for their own good. Consequently, it is obvious that such policies are accompanied by and impose an increase in state repression and authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is not simply repressing demonstrations. It is also about diminishing political rights, an unprecedented prevalence of surveillance, and the rapid changes we see in the law. Ultimately, it also regards the framing of an intended new constitutional revision. “Insulating” reforms, as Naomi Klein puts it, or, in other words, their entrenchment in the constitution, will be the crowning point of the serious change in social correlations that have occurred over the last four years. 

-The theory of two extremes, why did they have it resurface?
The theory of two extremes [horseshoe theory], which is the view of an important part of leading New Democracy cadres, officials, has no theoretical value as a construct. It is of purely propagandistic nature. The intent, once more, is to intimidate the electorate. By equating the activity of a neonazi organization  – which is now accused of being a criminal one – with that of the Left, the political aims are to defame the latter. This definitely is also an element of the strategy of tension, its ideological dimension.  

I do not think, however, that the strategy of tension will cease. The issue is, under which forms it will continue. If we assume that Golden Dawn’s actions are restricted, the question is: what is to come afterwards? It is quite probable that the strategy of tension, namely the intensification of authoritarian statism, will continue because the bailout loan program cannot be completed with the consent of society. It is possible that this role will be assumed by established state forces.

The graver political consequences, in my view, would be the possibility that this part of the electorate will be represented (and for it to be represented, it would mean that someone politically expresses this agenda) by the ongoing displacement [to authoritarianism], for example, of New Democracy. And this had to do directly with the well known views inside New Democracy itself, with the specific core that has been charged with taking on the strategy of tension and the theory of the two extremes, that up to now had limited resonance. That is therefore a much more crucial question: what will happen, how this tendency will evolve, and what are the chances for it to emerge as the strongest and dominant tendency. All bets are off at this point.

Yiannis Mavris is among the most respected political analysts and pollsters in Greece. Research conducted by Public Issue, a company which he founded in 2001, is often mentioned in both Greek and foreign media. Findings from Public Issue’s ‘Barometer’ surveys on social and political issues are often cited in academic research in Greece and abroad.  
Mr. Mavris has taught at the University of the Peloponnese and is a widely published author.