ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how interactions among actors with a concern for party unity and their personal political success give rise to behavior that is conducive to a clientelist bias. It highlights the way dynamic interactions between key actors inside the broader clientelist network generate a pattern of clientelist bias in the design of economic reform. In a clientelist system, the patron party must primarily accommodate the preferences of its client groups In Greece, policy making under Simitis was a balancing act between two potentially contrasting goals. On the one hand, preserving the privileges of PASOKs client groups, which secured the party's access to power and his position as party leader, and on the other hand, securing the sustainability of a highly redistributive and clientelist political economy, which involved accommodating the policy prescriptions of the European Union and reassuring international markets about the state and prospects of the Greek economy.
