Regulatory Governance in the Era of Populist Ascendancy: A Tug‐of‐War Between Independent Public Authorities and Central Government in Greece

ABSTRACT

While independent public authorities in Greece have mushroomed over time, they have to an extent been unable to fulfill their mission, owing to a context of acute political party polarization and political distrust in which these authorities operate. Governments have initially tended to support the establishment of independent authorities, but later to disapprove of their initiatives. Relations between the authorities and the government have evolved in different time periods before and particularly after the Greek economic crisis, notably during the pro‐austerity coalition governments of 2010–2014, the populist coalition government of 2015–2019 and the single‐party center‐right government in power since 2019. A tension between acknowledging the role of independent authorities and keeping authorities at bay marked these periods. The tension was caused by populist distrust of independent authorities, but also by the distrust of non‐populist governments toward independent authorities as well as the tendency of a few independent authorities to play the role of opposition in lieu of an effective parliamentary opposition to government. In Greece the relations between governments and independent authorities have become a never‐ending tug‐of‐war, showing the limits of trying to fix ailing democracies through the establishment of non‐majoritarian institutions.