Η αποσταθεροποιητική δυναμική του ελληνικού εκλογικού-δημοσιονομικού κύκλου

Abstract

Over the post-junta period in Greek politics there emerges a persistent electoral-fiscal cycle which leads to significant and non-reversible expansions in the public deficit at election times. After assessing the statistical evidence and a tendency for this cycle to become detribalized over the interval 1975- 1990, an analysis of its possible causes is undertaken. Based on the «exit- voice» framework of Hirschman, the analysis focuses on factors determining the articulation of «voice» in the Greek political system, and the interactions of «exit» and «voice». In conjunction with clientelisi networks, populist competitiveness, and instrumentalist perceptions of politics, it is argued that deficit expansions and the impossibility of their complete post-election rollback are outcomes of fundamental features of the political system: gravitation towards bipartisanism, weakness of non-partisan social groupings and institutions, increasing dormancy of the exercise of democratic rights which reawaken and assert themselves only at pre-election times. It is also argued that the persistence of electoral-fiscal cycles damages economic institutions of the public sector, eroding its credibility and making it even harder to stabilize, let alone eradicate, electroral-cyclical behaviour of incumbent parties.