The Authoritarian Past and Contemporary Greek Democracy

Abstract

In Greece after the 1974 democratic transition the Karamanlis government prioritised political stability and foreign policy issues over transitional justice. The punitive process in the army was extensive, while in the police, the gendarmerie, the justice system and the universities the process was less comprehensive. Greek socialists demanded a more thoroughgoing ‘cleansing’ of the state apparatus than some Greek communists. In the following decades, public opinion research showed a variety of responses towards the junta of 1967–74, including confusion about the facts of the authoritarian period and a decline in the rejection of authoritarianism.