Paper short abstract:

The paper investigates changing informal practices in present day Greece which are connected to intimate cooperation and social networking in the political sphere. The question is how informal practices of clientelism and patronage and their legitimacy have changed in dept-ridden Greece of today.

Paper long abstract:

The paper investigates changing informal practices in everyday life in present day Greece which are connected to intimate cooperation and social networking in the political sphere. In the anthropology of the Mediterranean, these relations have been discussed in terms of clientelism and political patronage (Campbell, Boissevain, Clogg). The exchange of goods and services for political support, one of the main features of the post-war Greek political system, was widely accepted as a legitimate social practice to achieve social and personal goals. In debt-ridden Greece of today, such long-established patterns of rewarding political followers have become difficult for political leaders regarding the crude fact of an empty state treasury. Referring to the anthropological discussion on the interrelation between legitimacy and legality, the question to be analyzed in the proposed paper is how these informal practices and their legitimacy have become transformed recently in relation to the established political culture of the country.