Modernization and Centre-Left Dilemmas in Greece: the Revenge of the Underdogs.

This paper argues that the recent decline in the hegemony of the centre-left in Greece is related to the ideas of modernization that have dominated that tradition over the past few years. The tendency to conceptualize development in terms of a clash between the “new” and the “old”, to ignore the extent to which neoliberalism involves a strategy for the restoration of power for dominant groups, and to see marginalized groups merely as a problem to be overcome, rather than part of any solution, has impaired the centre-left’s ability to understand its own decline and to think constructively about alternatives.