Abstract

Economic reforms face a collective action problem: they trigger the reaction of groups that expect significant losses, while the government must forge a support coalition among those who anticipate gains. This problem may exhibit a distinct pattern in a clientelist system, when the affected groups are client groups attached to political party networks. The case of the Mitsotakis government in Greece (1990–93) illustrates that collective reaction to reforms that hurt client groups affects primarily the internal structure of the clientelist parties, their alliance with client groups and, thereby, their relative capacity for political mobilisation. This pattern makes certain types of economic reform, such as privatisation and structural reforms, particularly risky for governments in a clientelist system.