Governing the Greek consolidation state: the far right as a symptom of failure and manifestation of efficiency

The victory of the conservative party New Democracy with an absolute majority in the 2019 Greek general elections was met with enthusiasm from the international political and financial media. The newly elected administration was depicted as technocratic with a natural aversion to populism and capable of ending the political tensions between EU core and periphery, and between fiscal consolidation and social welfare. Such a depiction painted a distorted picture of an administration whose electoral victory and subsequent policies depend on the appropriation of the far-right’s communicative strategy and political opposition tactics. The aim of this article is twofold. First, the article establishes the relationship between the mainstream right and the far-right in Greece with reference to the wider political landscape of EU and Eurozone membership. Second, the article examines the negotiated scope of acceptable far-right politics in Greece as an EU and Eurozone member-state by deploying the concepts of the ‘consolidation state’, ‘technopopulism’ and ‘authoritarian liberalism’.