Nationalism, anti-colonialism and the crystallisation of Greek Cypriot nationalist party politics

Abstract

While the effects of nationalism and anti-colonialism on party politics in Cyprus have been influential throughout its contemporary history, mobilisation of the anti-colonial cleavage within the Greek community of Cyprus largely accounts for the nature of Greek Cypriot politics in the early decades of British rule. Nationalism and anti-colonialism produced a permanent division among the nationalist circles of the Greek ethnic community between intransigents and moderates. Within this overarching division Greek Cypriot politics was characterised by continuous factionalism among a small social and religious elite. The bases of factionalism among the leading dignitaries of the Greek Cypriot elite were access to and ownership of power channels overlaid by individual differences over the anti-colonial struggle. The institutional context established by the British facilitated the demarcation of the conflict on an ethno-religious basis, subsequently retaining its largely intraethnic character and only becoming largely interethnic with the later political mobilisation of the Turkish community.