Race to the bottom? Accommodation strategies and political competition in the shadow of far-right normalization in Greece

Far-right parties in Greece have experienced an electoral momentum during the last decade, resulting in both the increase of the visibility and the normalization of their core issue positions and agendas. Yet, did this disruption have an impact only on right-wing political forces or did it affect the strategies and the official rhetoric of the parties across the political spectrum? And if the latter is the case, which are the specific causes that may lead a right-wing and a left-wing party to be compelled to adopt a more accommodative strategy? In order to answer this question, this paper carries out cross-party and across elections comparisons, leaning on party-level data, and more specifically on parties’ policy positions as listed in their electoral campaigns and manifestos, but also as derived from the official rhetoric of each party. The paper argues that in the case of mainstream right parties the key reason behind the shift is the very existence of contenders for the right-leaning vote (supply-driven strategy). Contrarily, regarding the left-wing political actors, a possible programmatic readjustment may be sparked for issue entrepreneurship reasons and the need for being antagonistic on the salient political issues of party competition (demand-driven strategy). Therefore, while right parties are indeed, to some extent, radicalized, left parties are rather opportunistically adjusting their agendas.