Greece

This chapter examines the politics of legislative debate in Greece. The Greek parliament, a relatively under-researched institution, is an interesting case in this volume’s context for at least two reasons. First, because of how the country’s institutional and party system intricacies do not allow for a straightforward classification along the Proksch and Slapin scheme, placing it somewhere between the two extremes. Second, because of the severe restructuring of the party system during the previous decade as a result of the Eurozone crisis and how it could have potentially strengthened the parliament. We make use of an original dataset on parliamentary speechmaking in the Greek parliament spanning twenty years of plenary debates to try to identify the determinants of floor access. Our analysis shows that women speak less than men. Cabinet members dominate the debate while we find some evidence that party leaders guard floor access and refrain from delegating speech time to backbenchers.