Referendum and the Choice between Monarchy and Republic in Greece
Forthcoming in
Constitutional Political Economy
DOI 10.1007/s10602-009-9078-4
George Tridimas
Abstract
Drawing on the 1974 Greek parliamentary elections and constitutional referendum which abolished the monarchy, the paper employs a spatial decision model to examine the strategic use of a parliamentary election and a non mandatory referendum by an agenda setter. The parliamentary election bundles two issues, the right to form a government and the right to choose the form of state. This implies that the election campaign efforts to attract votes are different from the campaign efforts to win an election for government and a separate referendum for the form of state. The choice of the agenda setter turns out to depend on his costs of campaign efforts in the different contests relative to those of the opposition, his benefits to be gained from winning the different contests, his comparative electoral appeal and the probability that the referendum secures his favourite outcome.
Key words: Greece; monarchy versus republic; non-required referendum; parliamentary elections; campaign effort; constitutional revision.
JEL classification: D7; N4
March 2009
G. Tridimas.
University of Ulster,
Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim, BT37 0QB, UK
E-mail:
Referendum and the Choice between Monarchy and Republic in Greece
Constitutional changes have often been ratified by holding a referendum. A long line of scholarship has inquired the comparative benefits of democratic decision making directly by the voters in a referendum and indirectly by elected representatives in parliament. There seems to be a wide consensus in the literature that deciding an issue of public interest by a referendum confers important benefits to the citizenry by involving the voters directly in the process of decision making. Typically, the existing volume of work considers the referendum as an alternative to the election for representatives, who decide the issue of public interest. The present paper extends and complements this line of inquiry by examining why an agenda setter chooses to call an election to decide some issues and a non mandatory referendum to settle some other issues, even though they could have been decided by the elected representatives.
In its analysis the paper draws on the experience of Greece, where the question of the form of the state, monarchy or republic, was put to a referendum six times in the period 1920-1974, while all other questions of policy and constitutional arrangements have always been decided by politicians elected in parliamentary elections (when not under authoritarian rule). The monarchy in Greece had a turbulent time, with four kings out of a total of seven deposed during the period 1832-1974. None of the six referendums about the monarchy was in any way constitutionally mandated, they were all held at the discretion of the incumbent governments. Both theory and practice have shown that a referendum may significantly change the result of the legislative process of representative democracy. Calling a referendum therefore, especially when there is no constitutional requirement to do so, may imply significant political risks and trade offs for a political ruler who acts as the agenda setter. What determines the choice of the agenda setter to call a referendum? This question is the subject of the present work.
The experience of the sixth referendum on the monarchy in Greece in 1974 is instructive: In 1974 after the collapse of the dictatorship there were two popular votes, first, a parliamentary election to produce a democratic government and vote in a new constitution; second, a referendum to either restore the monarchy or proclaim the country as a republic. Contrary to its predecessors, the pro-republic outcome of the 1974 referendum and the 1975 constitution which followed have proved long lasting and sufficiently flexible to allow orderly alternation of political parties in office and two constitutional revisions in accordance with the existing provisions.
The paper analyses the choice of the agenda setter to call a parliamentary election and to hold a non mandatory referendum to determine different issues of public interest. Even though the focus is on Greece, the question of how the agenda setter chooses to combine different voting mechanisms addresses a more general issue and as such, it is hoped, of wider interest.
The paper is structured as follows. By way of background, Section I summarises the history of the monarchy in Greece; it describes and compares the referendums (including fraudulent ones) that took place on its status and gives a detailed account of the 1974 referendum and the constitutional arrangements that followed it. Section II offers a selective survey of previous work on the referendum including a comparison to representative democracy, while Section III reviews earlier studies which also examined the use of the referendum as a means to advance the interests of an incumbent government. Section IV develops the theoretical argument of the paper. It examines the choice of the political ruler – agenda setter in a spatial decision framework where the expected outcomes of an election and a referendum depend on the utility from winning a vote, policy preferences and the effort expended to attract the support of the electorate. Comparison of the net expected payoff under the two mechanisms identifies the conditions which lead the agenda setter to call a referendum in order to advance his interests. The analysis in the paper is positive and concentrates on the choices of the agenda setter which maximise his expected utility leaving aside normative questions of whether an issue should be decided by a referendum on some normative criteria. Section V concludes.
I. Brief history of the monarchy and referendums about the monarchy in Greece
1 From monarchy to republic
In a monarchy the head of state is hereditary and holds the position for life, while in a (democratic) republic it is elected and serves for a limited term. The monarchy in modern Greece had a turbulent and troubled history which had been inextricably linked to both domestic and foreign policy developments. [1]
After the War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire, Greece was recognized as an independent state in 1832 and Otto Wittelsbach, a Bavarian prince, was chosen as king. Otto ruled as an absolute monarch until 1843 when he was forced to grant a constitution [2] and was eventually deposed in 1862. In 1863 George Glücksburg, a Danish prince, was chosen as king and a new constitution came into effect in 1864, by which Greece was proclaimed a “crowned democracy”, a democracy with a monarch. [3] George I was assassinated in 1913 by a madman and was succeeded by his son Constantine I. The king insisting that Greece stayed neutral during WWI clashed with the elected prime minister, E. Venizelos, who argued for Greece to join the Entente. The rift precipitated a deep national schism dividing the country into two bitterly opposed camps of royalists and anti-royalists (also called Venizelists). Bowing to very strong pressures Constantine I gave up the throne in 1917 but without formally abdicating and went into exile with his eldest son, George. He was succeeded by his second son Alexander.
After the untimely death of Alexander in 1920, and the electoral victory of the royalist parties in the same year, a referendum resulted in a 99% majority for the return of Constantine. Even though the actual size of the majority was manipulated, it appears that there was sufficient support for his return to win in a fair ballot. [4] It bears noting that the referendum was not about the constitutional arrangement as such, but about the person to sit on the throne. However, in the aftermath of Greece’s heavy defeat in Asia Minor by Turkey in 1922, the military staged a coup which brought down the pro-royalist government and forced Constantine to abdicate. He was succeeded by his son George. With mounting social and economic problems[5] the anti-royalist current grew so strong that in 1923 George II was forced to go abroad on ‘leave of absence’ and in March 1924 the anti-royalist government passed a parliamentary resolution abolishing the monarchy. A referendum in November 1924 recorded a 30% vote against the monarchy and 70% vote in favour of a republic. [6]
The Republic, whose constitution was ratified by the parliament in 1927, was short lived. [7] The 1935 election (not contested by Venizelist parties after a failed putsch of Venizelist officers) resulted in a huge pro-royalist majority, which promptly restored the monarchy. A new referendum was held which returned a blatantly rigged vote of 98% in favour of the monarchy. A year later, in 1936, dictatorial rule was imposed with the approval of the king. In 1941 after the German army overran the Greek forces King George II left Greece. In March 1946 and in the middle of a savage civil war between the nationalists and the communists, parliamentary elections were held. With the leftists and the Communist party abstaining the alliance of the royalist parties gained a substantial parliamentary majority against the liberals. The nationalist government then held another referendum in September 1946 about the constitutional issue which resulted in a 68% vote in favour of the monarchy. That vote too was marred by confirmed allegations of fraud. Historians argue that although the monarchy did not enjoy much support there was widespread opposition to a communist government and the monarchy was seen as a security against a communist take-over. [8] King George II returned, but died a few months later in 1947 and was succeeded by his brother Paul. The civil war ended in 1949 and a new constitution came into effect in 1952. A period of economic progress followed under a rightwing government led by C. Karamanlis, but tensions between him and the king also developed.
On King Paul’s death in 1964 the throne passed to his son Constantine II. In turn, he clashed with the centrist PM, G. Papandreou, resulting in the resignation of the latter in 1965. In April 1967 the “colonels” staged a military coup and suspended the constitutional order. Following an unsuccessful counter-coup in December 1967 Constantine II fled the country and took up residence in London. After suppressing a mutiny led by navy officers, the military regime abolished the monarchy in 1973. A referendum followed to legitimise the change. As it was held under military law and characterised by widespread electoral irregularities, the reported 20% vote against the monarchy is discredited. [9] The junta collapsed in July 1974 amid mounting political and economic problems and the threat of war against Turkey and C. Karamanlis formed a government of national unity. The right-of-centre government which emerged after the elections, led again by Karamanlis, held a new, this time clean, referendum about the form of the state which recorded a 69% vote against the monarchy. In 1975 a new constitution was promulgated introducing a “presided” parliamentary republic form of government, a term coined to signify the extent of the prerogatives of the president of the republic, elected by the parliament, with the power to dissolve parliament, veto legislation and call a referendum. The constitution also stipulated that the articles which determine the form of state are not subject to revision. Since then the constitutional position of the republic has not come under questioning.
Table 1 summarizes the time line of the form of the Greek state and details the six referendums regarding the monarchy. There is little doubt that the role of the monarchy was controversial and it often became the source of political and constitutional instability.
Of all the referendums held about the monarchy none was constitutionally required, they were all held at the discretion of the incumbent government. The 1920, 1924, 1935 and 1946 referendums were preceded by parliamentary votes on the question of monarchy / republic and in all cases the referendum result turned out to simply endorse the result of the parliamentary vote. Of course, as normal democratic politics had been suspended, no parliamentary vote preceded the 1973 referendum of the military government, which imposed its own constitutional arrangements, nor was any doubt that the junta would have allowed a result rejecting its proposals. The 1974 plebiscite was different. It was the first referendum on the constitutional question to pass the test of free and fair vote under universal suffrage (women in Greece were enfranchised in 1956) and it was the only referendum whose result was not contested by the losing side. In addition, crucially from the viewpoint of the present inquiry and contrary to all the earlier referendums on the monarchy, it was not preceded by a parliamentary vote, but it was called as the exclusive mechanism to decide the constitutional question at a time when a parliamentary election was also held to settle other issues of public policy and pass a new constitution.
2 The 1974 referendum and its constitutional ramifications
It is useful to detail both the political context and the conduct of the 1974 referendum. After the collapse of the military regime in July 1974, the transitory national unity government of conservatives and centrists led by C. Karamanlis announced that parliamentary elections would be held on 17 November 1974 to be followed by a referendum on the monarchy on 8 December 1974. In addition to its standard legislative powers, the new parliament would also revise the constitution subject to the referendum verdict. However, the convocation of the parliament was postponed until 9 December, one day after the referendum. [10] Note that the form of the state, monarchy or republic, is a constitutional question which in principle may be separated from the person of the monarch. However, in truth the only way for the monarchy to continue was for the Glücksburg dynasty to remain on the throne (as opposed to any other royal house); as a result the constitutional issue and the choice of the particular person could hardly be separated.