Beyond Left and Right: Quantitative Evidence of the Establishment–Anti-Establishment Dimension in Greece

Excited to share the new paper in the Hellenic Observatory’s GreeSE Papers series at LSE that we co-authored with Stefanos Tyros and Sofia Vasilopoulou.

The title of the paper is “Beyond Left and Right: Quantitative Evidence of the Establishment–Anti-Establishment Dimension in Greece“, and the core finding is quite simple, but important: in Greece, the left–right divide still remains the main axis of political competition, yet a second visible dimension has also gained a lot of influence, with the divide between establishment and anti-establishment politics becoming crucial in order to understand Greek voters.

Using data from the Eteron (2025) survey “X-Ray of Greek Voters“, which maps Greek citizens’ attitudes and perceptions of key political institutions, their ideological positions, and pressing political dilemmas, and applying PCA, we find that distrust toward institutions and anti-elite sentiment now structure party choice in a way that cuts across traditional ideological camps. At the same time, the classic left–right axis still remains the principal distinction in voters’ identity.

The anti-establishment axis is constituted by deep distrust of institutions, political disaffection and anti-elite sentiment, disappointment with corruption and the political class, and often Eurosceptic and sometimes anti-Western attitudes.