The Pulse of Greece's Fragile Democracy Symbolic Hegemony and Institutional Fragility in Greek Political Culture (1974–2025)
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article offers a comprehensive analysis of how symbolic practices have shaped Greek democracy from the Metapolitefsi to the present, reframing them as survival-oriented mechanisms that respond to chronic political, economic, and institutional insecurity. It introduces two analytical concepts—symbolic hypertrophy and symbolic saturation—to explain the long-term tension between symbolic cohesion and institutional fragility. Drawing on Castoriadis’s theory of the social imaginary, Gauchet’s account of democratic autonomy and symbolic authority, Sarantoulias’s recent work on symbolic mediation in late-modern democracies, and insights from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and contemporary threat-psychology research, the study proposes an interpretive framework in which symbolic meaning is understood not merely as cultural expression but as a compensatory response to unmet needs for safety, predictability, and collective orientation. The article traces four historical phases (1974–1989; 1990–2009; 2010–2019; 2020–2025) to demonstrate how political narratives, ritualised performances, and symbolic repertoires initially stabilised democratic consolidation by providing psychological and emotional security in a context of institutional flux. During the economic crisis, conditions of acute uncertainty intensified symbolic mobilisation, creating symbolic hypertrophy. By the 2020s, repeated deployment of similar symbolic narratives amid persistent institutional deficiencies produced symbolic saturation, weakening their capacity to buffer collective anxiety or sustain political trust. The study contributes to debates in modern Greek political studies by offering a theoretically grounded explanation of symbolic decline, institutional strain, and the psychological underpinnings of political legitimacy. It argues that the contemporary challenge for Greek democracy lies not in the absence of democratic sentiment but in the erosion of symbolic frameworks that once mitigated insecurity and sustained the felt stability of political life.
Author: Thomadakis, Markos
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7160726096
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