Lower levels of clientelism in Portuguese politics explain why Portugal handled austerity better than Greece during the crisis

Greece and Portugal were two of the worst hit countries by the Eurozone crisis, yet the domestic political reaction within each state was notably different. While in Greece there were difficulties agreeing to austerity policies and the party system underwent substantial change; Portuguese parties negotiated a broad political consensus over reforms and the mainstream parties largely retained their support base. Alexandre Afonso, Sotirios Zartaloudis and Yannis Papadopoulos argue that the key reason for this difference relates to the varying levels of clientelism in each country, where political ‘patrons’ provide goods or services to their backers in return for political support. They write that the fact Portugal had lower levels of clientelism before the crisis ensured that Portuguese parties were more capable of backing austerity policies without alienating their supporters.