The path of modernization: PASOK and European integration
In 1974, the year in which PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) was founded, Greece faced one of those ‘critical situations’, described by Emile Durkheim, during which exceptional events strengthen collective identities and consolidate the feeling of belonging to a community. The fall of the dictatorship, the humiliation of Greece in Cyprus, and the referendum which brought about the end of the monarchy were the major events in 1974. These events mobilized large segments of the population, signicantly increased interest in politics, raised the credibility of political parties, and legitimized expectations of innovative political reforms. Everything appeared possible in 1974. Throughout the 1970s and culminating in 1981, the year of the great electoral triumph of the Greek socialists (48.07 per cent in contrast to 25.33 per cent in 1977 and only 13.58 per cent in 1974), PASOK had been imposed as a force which—more than any other party of the Left or the Right—represented the widespread conviction that extraordinary political engineering was on the agenda. In the 1970s and the early 1980s, PASOK proved to be extremely successful in combining anti-capitalist discourse with the historically articulated symbols of the political Centre. Andreas Papandreou, the leader and founder of PASOK, personied this combination in an exemplary fashion, unifying his centrist origin with Marxist analysis. Indeed, the strategic position occupied by the Greek socialists in the system of party competition was unique and remarkable. In the rst period (1974–1981), PASOK succeeded in functioning as the main vehicle of political protest within the party system, touching at times, in its rhetoric, the limits of an anti-systemic party. It succeeded at the same time in gradually dominating the electoral space of the historic Centre and establishing itself, particularly after the elections of 1977, as a party à vocation majoritaire. During this period, PASOK was—simultaneously!—a continuation of the historical Centre and a force more innovative and dynamic than the communist Left. The strategy of PASOK in the period 1974–1985 could be compared to that of François Mitterrand in the period 1973–1984. Both strategies should be taught in the textbooks of political science as two different paradigms which
Left strategy in the Greek cauldron: explaining Syriza’s success
Fear and hope were the two dominant sentiments generated by the unprecedented recent electoral advances of the radical political coalition of the Greek left, Syriza. On the one hand there was fear of the established hierarchies of capital, the profit-making forces within Greece and abroad, as well as of important geopolitical interests. It was a fear that became more explicit after the May 2012 election (when Syriza had already tripled its vote to 16.9 per cent from 4.6 per cent in 2009), when the prospect of winning the June election seemed quite realistically to be around the corner. It was then that the international institutions displayed their concerns and fears about the rise of the left to power. This could be seen in their hinting at certain concessions with regard to Syriza’s programmatic claims while at the same time waging a cheap propaganda war that intervened directly in the electoral campaign, alongside a degree of scaremongering by domestic business, intellectual and media elites that appeared to be inspired by the darkest sides of McCarthyism. The hope Syriza’s advances inspired, however, in good part counterbalanced all this. Against the backdrop of the ongoing dramatic consequences of the austerity policies, with new social calamities a daily experience, Syriza appeared more and more to be the only viable hope for an alternative way out of crisis. In fact, given that part of Syriza’s plan was based on challenging both the predominance of neoliberalism and the democratic deficit in the European institutions, this feeling of hope spread among progressive forces on the continent, and beyond. 
 
The goal of this essay is to contribute to a better understanding of Syriza so its experience may constitute a fruitful as well as inspiring case from which to draw lessons for socialist strategy today. To this end, after some general comments on the latter I will turn to the Greek case, beginning with the left’s evolution after the fall of the Junta in 1974, and especially its development since the collapse of ‘actually existing socialism’ in 1989. I will then try to show why Syriza’s strategy was so successful as compared with other parts of the left movement, attempting to point out the characteristics of its strategy that may help overcome long-lasting disputes on the left and/or discover ways out of the impasse that the current crisis has imposed upon us. I will conclude with an outline of the challenges faced by Syriza, and more generally by the radical left in Greece in the current conjuncture, which are in fact similar to those faced by socialists worldwide.
European Neutrality in Historical Perspective
This chapter places the neutrality policies of the established European neutral states—Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland—in historical context. It explores the origins of neutrality in the idea of non-belligerency in war and the history of neutrality in modern European international politics, highlighting the way in which quite a wide variety of states were or sought to be neutral at various points in the nineteenth century or the first half of the twentieth century. The chapter then shows how the Cold War division of Europe resulted in Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland (along with Yugoslavia) emerging as a distinctive neutral group of states between the two blocs. The chapter also reviews how the European neutral states’ foreign and security policies have adapted since the end of the Cold War. It finishes with some conclusions about neutrality in general and the neutrality of the established European neutral states in particular.