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This paper, based on cross-regional empirical research, provides an integrated analytical framework for understanding the emergence of populism in seemingly different political contexts in both Europe (including Greece, France and the Netherlands) and Latin America (including Peru and Venezuela). It is found that, given an appropriate context, political leadership is the most important factor for setting in motion a number of interdependent causal mechanisms that may produce populism. Those mechanisms include the politicization of social resentment, the formation of new cleavage lines, and intense polarization. When successfully emergent, populism's first and foremost outcome is the creation of new parties, or movements, of a distinctly personalist appeal. The causal explanation proposed in this paper is both parsimonious and credible. It also points to specific research themes related to successfully emergent populism.

This article argues against two firmly-established ideas about the 1944 communist insurgency that led to the outbreak of civil war in postliberation Greece: (a) blame attribution to predominantly one actor, who, depending on each author's ideological perspective, is either the Greek Communists or the British, and (b) outcome inevitability. Instead, the present analysis brings to the fore a set of no less than five distinct actors including, besides the original two, Prime Minister George Papandreou; Greece's traditional political class; and the Greek monarch. Based primarily on the close reading of original documents, such as the personal accounts left behind by the protagonists of the civil war drama, and using causal inferences derived from counterfactual logic, this analysis shows that the Greek civil war would have been an inevitable outcome only if there were on the scene just two actors, the British and the Communists, directly confronting each other. Since however that was not the case, it is shown that Papandreou could have prevented civil war had he succeeded in both forging strategic alliances with the traditional political elites and embracing republicanism. His failure to implement either goal offers a novel interpretation of the Greek civil war, which also emphasizes the need for bringing leadership back into the study of civil war and other contentious politics phenomena. This is expected to foster our thinking about the dynamics leading to civil war outbreaks at the crucial meso-level, while also alerting us to the fact that civil wars are rarely inevitable and that they can be prevented by strategic leadership action.

This paper, initially prompted by the puzzles raised from the atypical emergence of charismatic politics in the otherwise ordinary political system that our contemporary democracy is supposed to be, seeks to bring political charisma back into the study of comparative politics by reconstructing the concept and rendering it applicable to empirical research. Unlike previous approaches, which have suffered from either individual or structural reductionism, the present study examines charisma as a pure power term by focusing on what makes it appear in ordinary democratic politics as an extraordinary phenomenon, namely, its personal (as opposed to impersonal) character of leadership and the pursuit of a politically radical (as opposed to moderate) program. Accordingly, political charisma is defined as a distinct type of legitimate leadership that is personal and aims at the radical transformation of an established institutional order. Such an understanding of political charisma enables us to further analyze the core features of charismatic leadership and construct an "index of charismaticness" ready to be put under comparative empirical investigation. Sampling from postwar and contemporary European politics, a number of charismatic leaders are examined and then contrasted to non-charismatic ones. It is argued that, once reclaimed for political science, charisma may prove a useful concept with surprising analytical potential. Renewed interest in political charisma is expected to offer valuable clues in such important research areas as political leadership, populism, and contentious politics.

Patronage is an enduring feature of contemporary politics and may well develop in modern, mass organized and ideological political parties. This article approaches patronage in an analytical way, and seeks to explore its micro-foundations and logic of development. As the case of Greece's socialist party suggests, patronage is the deliberate outcome of choices made by political actors at the sub-party level in their pursuit of power. Three particular actors are identified and their relations analysed: the party leader, the party organization and the party officeseekers, who are further distinguished into `patrons' and `partisans'. Patronage is likely to develop when a party leader is able to exercise control of both the party organization and the appointments for public office; in this case, even ideologically motivated partisans are expected to turn into self-interested patrons. Finally, some interesting implications for further research are pointed out.

The perception of liberal democracy as a solidly institutionalized system in which opposition forces moderately compete with legitimate authority is so fixed that people are often surprised when mass radicalism emerges. Why, when, and how do radical mass movements emerge in pluralist (or semipluralist) political systems? The article, by linking radical action at the mass level with strategic choices at the elite level, argues in favor of an explanation based on symbolic framing processes. Radical mass action is best explained by the symbolic-cum-strategic action of individual political entrepreneurs employing specific frames to mobilize large masses of people. The argument is empirically clarified by the examination of three cases in which mass radicalism occurred in recent decades (Greece, Yugoslavia, Venezuela) and is then counterfactually tested in six cases of nonoccurrence (Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Romania, Colombia, Ecuador). The present analysis also points to a novel theorization of political charisma and charismatic leadership.

Examines the impact of the emergence of modern conservative parties in postauthoritarian southern Europe on the formation of stable democratic institutions. It is argued that the primary goal of conservative democrats in the new regimes was to move toward the center of the Left-Right continuum. Success or failure of the shift toward a more centrist position was determined by the structure of political competition, as well as the strategies of moderate-conservative elites, as compared to those of the extreme Right. The historical origins of modern conservatism in southern Europe are traced, & the party systems that emerged after the transition to competitive politics are described. Although the new political environment was characterized by the usual Left/Right dichotomy, voter focus on political participation & social equality forced conservative leaders to forego right-wing ideology, & move toward the center in order to appease social demands & garner more votes. Reasons for the success of the strategy in Greece & Spain & different outcomes in Portugal & Italy are discussed. 1 Figure. J. Lindroth

When badly hit by the same global financial and economic crisis in the early 2000s, the Irish and the Greek societies reacted in quite different ways. Whereas Ireland remained largely acquiescent and displayed a high degree of civil compliance, Greeks took massively to the streets using violence and attacking specifically the state and the state personnel, a phenomenon we refer to as "political Luddism." It is shown that the two countries are quite similar in terms of their economic condition, cultural background, social composition, ideological profiling, and party system dynamics, among other factors. What, then, explains the two countries' dissimilar reactions to crisis? Through a detailed analysis of the cases, the article offers evidence that the most compelling explanation relates to the varying ability of the Greek and Irish states to continue providing basic public goods and other state-related services to their respective societies.