ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a brief discussion of the role of interest groups in the Greek political system, on the basis of a survey of the organisations concerned, an asessment of their influence on government, and a consideration of their changing fortunes before and after the Colonels’ dictatorship. As in other Western European political systems, there are thousands of interest groups in Greece, performing different roles and having varying relationships with the institutional structures of the State. The groups inevitably cover a wide range of the interests, from strictly economic to cultural, educational, ethnic, religious, and conservationist. The negative effects of interest groups in creating rigidities in the economic and social system have been more than offset by their stabilising influence in a society characterised by a succession of the abnormal political, economic and social developments in the last 50 years.
