https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:07 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 https://toarcheio.org/items/dynamics-of-polarization-in-the-greek-case/ Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:07 +0000 https://toarcheio.org/items/dynamics-of-polarization-in-the-greek-case/ Continued]]> This article focuses on the dynamics of polarization emerging within Greek political culture in the postauthoritarian setting. Following a brief historical framing, we trace Left–Right polarization between the two major parties of the period: Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and New Democracy (ND). The party-based polarization of PASOK/ND was arguably the main axis of political antagonism in Greece from the 1970s until the end of the 2000s. By 2009, polarization had ebbed due to an ideological convergence of the two parties toward the center, but the onset of the 2009 economic crisis dislocated the established two-party system and facilitated the emergence of a new political landscape comprising many new political actors, most notably the Coalition of the Radical Left, SYRIZA. Using a predominantly quantitative methodology, we focus on a set of dimensions of polarization brought forward or re-activated within the context of economic crisis.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/liberal-articulations-of-the-enlightenment-in-the-greek-public-sphere/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:54 +0000 http://arc.local/items/liberal-articulations-of-the-enlightenment-in-the-greek-public-sphere/ Continued]]> The paper analyzes ‘liberal’ constructions of the ‘Enlightenment’ in the Greek public sphere. The study is based on the analysis of articles published in two news/lifestyle websites, ‘AthensVoice’ and ‘Protagon’, during the years of the ongoing ‘Greek crisis’. Discourse theory, informed by critical discourse analysis, is deployed to analyze these discursive articulations. The analysis shows that Greece’s economic/social/political problems are viewed as symptoms that underline Greece’s fundamental deficit, which is the country’s ‘lack of ‘Enlightenment’. The article concludes that such discourses are part of a biopolitical, disciplinary framework producing the object to be reformed by austerity: a ‘un-Enlightened’ ‘Greek character’, ‘guilty’ for ‘self-inflicting’ Greece’s crisis. This ‘reform of character’ envisioned by (neo)liberals in Greece and elsewhere, is supposed to emerge through the institutional advance of neoliberal restructurings such as indefinite austerity and privatizations, conditions to foster the neoliberal, entrepreneurial, mobile and austere subject, to potentially reproduce that capitalist process.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/the-role-of-arts-in-raising-ethical-awareness-and-knowledge-of-the-european-refugee-crisis-among-social-work-students-an-example-from-the-classroom/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:51 +0000 http://arc.local/items/the-role-of-arts-in-raising-ethical-awareness-and-knowledge-of-the-european-refugee-crisis-among-social-work-students-an-example-from-the-classroom/ Continued]]> This paper presents and discusses an arts-based project, carried out by the first-year students in the classroom, at the Department of Social Work, in Athens, Greece. The project was designed for raising ethical awareness and knowledge of the 2015 Europe’s refugee crisis among social work students. The purpose of this project was three-fold: (1) to help students to better understand the refugee crisis as an emerging problem in Europe and in the rest of the world; (2) to help students raise their ethical awareness about the plight of refugees and to learn how to avoid discrimination and racism; and (3) to improve students’ abilities to work effectively with refugee populations. The project used art-based activities (drawing, writing, photos, etc.) as a powerful pedagogical tool for teaching students and supporting their learning in the classroom. As the literature has shown, the use of arts in social work education helps student to learn through an artistic and creative way and provides a secure base, from which they can explore real-life situations and try to give meaning to them.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/europes-last-frontier-the-spatialities-of-the-refugee-crisis/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:40 +0000 http://arc.local/items/europes-last-frontier-the-spatialities-of-the-refugee-crisis/ Continued]]> The Post-Cold War period has brought forth new conditions for the dominant European spatialities. First, that period signified a new condition for real estate and land ownership, second a radical transformation and increase of the built environment and third the securitization of a privileged European territory. As the European economy slows and the construction and real estate sectors are further deregulated, together with the promises that the post-Cold War period brought, what we observe coming to the surface in the context of the current refugee crisis is the manifestation of Europe’s most ugly and discriminatory spatiality—the preservation at all costs of its border security.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/quid-pro-quo-political-trust-and-policy-implementation-in-greece-during-the-age-of-austerity/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:25 +0000 http://arc.local/items/quid-pro-quo-political-trust-and-policy-implementation-in-greece-during-the-age-of-austerity/ Continued]]> Why do national governments fail to implement deep reforms in light of strong international and European pressures? Building on the top-down implementation framework by Mazmanian and Sabatier, we argue that political trust underpins the government’s implementation track record. We investigate this argument by looking at the failure of the Greek government to implement bailout reforms between 2010 and 2012 in two areas: tax and duty collection and liberalization of taxi licenses. Lower levels of trust decrease administrative capacity and widen problem intractability, creating a vicious cycle of noncooperation and economic recession. Our findings have policy implications for administrative reforms and offer amendments to theories of implementation and institutional rational choice.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/europes-communication-deficit-and-the-uk-press-framing-the-greek-financial-crisis/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:22 +0000 http://arc.local/items/europes-communication-deficit-and-the-uk-press-framing-the-greek-financial-crisis/ Continued]]> As Europe’s leaders battle to solve the Eurozone debt crisis, Europe’s ‘communication deficit’ becomes ever more pertinent. So does the role of national media, which, in the case of Britain, are often accused of fuelling Euroscepticism among the public. This study aims to contribute to this debate and explore the UK media’s performance in the early stages of the Greek financial crisis. We address how the British press makes sense of Europe through an issue that pertains in a small economy but entails risks for the whole of Europe; and we ask to what extent this coverage conforms to the allegation that European politics is portrayed through domesticised media frames and polemical language. Although our findings validate existing concerns pertaining to journalists’ professional practices that shape the reporting of Europe, they also show evidence of an effort made by British newspapers—albeit mostly broadsheets—to overcome stereotypical interpretations.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/economic-shock-therapy-in-the-eurozone-the-greek-case/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:15 +0000 http://arc.local/items/economic-shock-therapy-in-the-eurozone-the-greek-case/ Continued]]> Lois Woestman writing in May 2012 examines how, over the past two years, Greece has been undergoing economic shock therapy not unlike that undertaken by many countries in the Global South/Arab world. She argues that in the Greek case the EC institutions have been even more austere than the IMF. The impacts are similar to those in other adjusting countries: widening class, gender, non-citizen/citizen gaps; growing poverty and hopelessness – as well as protest. Greeks have been relying on older survival strategies, but also new ‘alternative’ economic activities intertwined with new notions of citizenship. She suggests that Greece – Europe – stands before a choice between the continued mono-focus on austerity, which will bring down the Euro and Europe, or a return to more equally distributed, growth and social solidarity.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/athens-in-the-mediterranean-movement-of-the-piazzas-spontaneity-in-material-and-virtual-public-spaces/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:14 +0000 http://arc.local/items/athens-in-the-mediterranean-movement-of-the-piazzas-spontaneity-in-material-and-virtual-public-spaces/ Continued]]> Mediterranean cities are carrying Gramsci’s concept of spontaneity into the 21st century through massive social movements after the ‘Arab Spring’. This paper explores the ways in which the material and virtual cityscape interact with socio-political transformation during the ‘movement of the piazzas’ in Athens, Greece. After a discussion of the importance of urban informality, porosity and land-use mixtures for social cohesion, of creeping ghettoization in some enclaves and of the perils of urbicide, we proceed to an analysis of grassroots action in Athens in comparison with different cities of the Mediterranean and beyond. Social movements are placed in their respective local and global context—their recurrent material landscapes and their cosmopolitan virtual spaces of digital interaction. This analysis leads to reflections on the possible role of popular spontaneity in democratization and in European integration at the grassroots level, against the onslaught of neoliberalism and accumulation by dispossession.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/the-limits-of-europeanisation-reform-capacity-and-public-policy-in-greece/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:06 +0000 http://arc.local/items/the-limits-of-europeanisation-reform-capacity-and-public-policy-in-greece/