https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Thu, 30 Apr 2020 15:30:30 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 https://toarcheio.org/items/nonrecording-the-european-refugee-crisis-in-greece-navigating-through-irregular-bureaucracy/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:51 +0000 http://arc.local/items/nonrecording-the-european-refugee-crisis-in-greece-navigating-through-irregular-bureaucracy/ Continued]]> This article explores nonrecording on the borders of Europe during the “European refugee crisis” in 2015. It examines the ambiguous practices of border control and the diverse actors involved. Taking the island of Lesvos as its starting point, the article interrogates how state functionaries manage an “irregular” bureaucracy. Irregular bureaucracy is approached as an essential element of state-craft , rather than an indication of state failure. Nonrecording is thus a crucial site of contestation between the state, nonstate agents, and the government, as well as between Greece and “Europe.” Nevertheless, despite the prevalence of irregularity, the imagery associated with ideal bureaucracy—a system of absolute knowledge, control, and governance of populations—is powerful; and yet, the actors are fully aware that it is a fantasy.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/emu-and-the-greek-crisis-the-political-economy-perspective/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:07 +0000 http://arc.local/items/emu-and-the-greek-crisis-the-political-economy-perspective/ Continued]]> We describe the political–economic environment that precipitated the Greek crisis. Involved were collaborations between private interests and the formally elected and appointed custodians of the public interest, and a captured politicized government bureaucracy. The confluence of these forces resulted in the pilfering of public funds, rampant tax evasion, and deterioration in the quality of publicly provided goods. From a macroeconomic perspective, the failure of successive Greek governments to reverse the decline in the national saving rate, and not the government budget deficit per se, was the main reason for the crisis. There was misrepresentation of official Greek national statistics but the inability or unwillingness of EMU authorities to react to visible portents of Greek failure, such as ongoing large current account deficits that were not hidden by “Greek statistics”, exposes a major fault line in the EMU’s design and implementation through the Stability and Growth Pact.

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