Is Greek Colonels left wing or right wing?

On economic organisation Greek Colonels scores +04 on a scale from −10 (common ownership) to +10 (private property and markets). On social and cultural order it scores +09. A single left–right figure combines these and four further measurements that move independently, which is why the atlas reports six.

Is Greek Colonels authoritarian?

On the organisation of power, which measures whether authority is dispersed among institutions that can stop each other or concentrated in a single centre, Greek Colonels scores +09. Parliament dissolved, parties banned, torture documented by the Council of Europe, citizenship stripped from opponents.

Atlas / Organisations / Greek Colonels

Greek Colonels

Regime of the Colonels · 1967–1974 · Greece · Military Authoritarian · Held state power · coding confidence medium

+04ECmarket

+09CUtraditional

+09AUmonist

+08SCcentral

+06IDascriptive

+03CHcoercive

Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →

Core principles

A seven-year military dictatorship justified by anti-communism, ended by its own catastrophic adventure in Cyprus.

Economic model

Tourism and construction growth, foreign investment, tight monetary policy, no structural reform.

Organisation of powers

Parliament dissolved, parties banned, torture documented by the Council of Europe, citizenship stripped from opponents.

Reading note

Fell in 1974 after provoking the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Its collapse produced one of the most durable democracies in southern Europe.

Check a claim about Greek Colonels. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.

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The evidence for every score

All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.

EC · Economic organisation · scored +04

Coded +4: tourism and construction growth with no structural reform.

Documented act or statuteForeign investment was courted while the drachma was tightly managed.

CU · Social and cultural order · scored +09

At the near-ceiling: a moral order imposed by decree.

Documented act or statuteLong hair, miniskirts, certain music and the works of named authors were prohibited.

AU · Organisation of power · scored +09

Coded +9: parliament dissolved, parties banned, torture documented internationally.

Documented act or statuteThe Council of Europe found systematic torture in 1969 and Greece withdrew before expulsion.

SC · Scale of decision · scored +08

Coded +8: a centralised state with appointed prefects and purged universities.

Documented act or statuteAcademic and judicial purges followed the 1967 coup immediately.

ID · Rule of membership · scored +06

Coded +6: citizenship stripped from exiled opponents.

Documented act or statuteDenationalisation was used against opponents abroad.

CH · Method and tempo · scored +03

Coded +3: power taken by coup and lost through its own foreign adventure.

Documented act or statuteThe Cyprus coup of July 1974 provoked the Turkish invasion and the regime's collapse within days.

Nearest organisations by measured distance

Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.

Countries

Greece

Cite this page

Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.

McGrath, K. (2026). Greek Colonels. The Political Atlas, version 4.2. https://thepoliticalatlas.com/organisations/greekjunta/ (accessed 2026-08-01).

Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.