Stillborn Republic: Social Coalitions and Party Strategies in Greece, 1922-1936 (review)

Reviews 137 and identify them, leaving the reader to wonder how seriously particular claims are to be taken. Woodhouse writes in his usual lucid and highly readable style and his knowledge of Greek politics and politicians is profound. He pays tribute to a leader who unquestionably has earned for himself a truly exalted place in the history of modern Greece. It will be a while before historians can evaluate Karamanlis's impact upon Greece with full detachment and balance. In the meantime Woodhouse's work will remain the best of its kind. John O. Iatrides Southern Connecticut State University George Th. Mavrogordatos, Stillborn Republic: Social Coalitions and Party Strategies in Greece, 1922-1936. Berkeley and Los Angles: University of California Press. 1983. Pp. xxiii + 380. $40.00. Modern Greece has had universal male suffrage and functioning representative institutions for much of its modern history. Yet, until the appearance of this volume, the historical dimension of electoral behavior has not been systematically examined. The purpose is explanation of the intense political conflict, and the attendant crisis of legitimacy that destroyed the interwar Greek republic. The author deftly summarizes interwar politics, and then proceeds to examine two "mainstream" explanations. First clientelism and then charisma is subjected to critical analysis and both are judged incomplete . At this point, a more preferred explanation, social cleavage, is suggested. This variable, unlike the others, can be easily measured. Major chapters delineate social cleavages using ecological data drawn from the 1928 census and analyze them in terms of party support in the 1928, 1932, 1933 and 1936 elections. The final chapter discusses the problem of legitimacy in terms of party strategies and the constraints imposed by social cleavages. Although styled a "revisionist" interpretation, the argument is revisionist only if the author's characterization of existing literature is accepted. Surely no one has seriously described Greek politics as "purely" clientelist, "only" a matter of elite activity, or the preserve of "great men." Instead, Mavrogordatos has provided data to illuminate a recognized, but unexplored dimension in Greek politics. Three social cleavages—class, natives versus refugees, and Orthodox Greeks versus minorities, and a regional one, that between "Old 138 Reviews Greece" and the "New Lands"—are given attention. The aim of the quantitative analysis, surprisingly modest, to establish "whether social cleavages had any discernable impact on interwar mass politics ..." (p. 101), is more than adequately met. Clearly, these cleavages have a "discernable" impact on support for the major blocs, the Venizelists and the anti-Venizelists, and an even more significant relationship with the minor parties. The methodology is appropriate but minor questions can be asked. For example, electoral support for all parties identified as Venizelist or anti-Venizelist is lumped together, despite their shifting character in the four elections. Occasionally, additional technical information would aid in the interpretation of tabular data. The author generally recognizes the limitations of his data. In most cases, the variance explained by correlation analysis is small. Consequently , Mavrogordatos is content to rest his case on the general direction of the association rather than the correlation coefficient itself. The analysis of class and its relationship to party support produces a negative association between peasant ownership and anti-Venizelism , and a positive one between peasant ownership and Venizelism. However, in the former case, less than 3 percent of the variance is explained, and in the latter, less than 5 percent. Only marginally better results are found using indicators keyed to agricultural market orientation. The analysis of refugees and support for the Venizelist bloc produced an r of .29. Although interwar minorities comprised something over 6 percent of the population, their preference for antiVenizelist parties is clearly shown. Analysis of social cleavages and support for the Communist party and the Agrarian party consistently produces more substantial measures of association. Contrary to established wisdom, refugee support for the Communist party is shown to be far greater in urban areas than in rural ones. The major division within interwar Greece, not surprisingly, is between the "old lands and the new lands." This reflects a division between "privilege" and "deprivation" expressed by quantitative indicators. It also reflects the advantages gained by "Old Greece" from clientelist networks long entrenched in the state...