A Citizen’s Guide to Greece 2015
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Fascists go to school
Posted March 13, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Damian Mac Con Uladh The growth in popularity of Golden Dawn in the country’s secondary schools and the wider problem of how to deal with fascism in the classroom is the subject of a conference at Athens University that starts on Wednesday. Over 20 university historians, social scientists and a psychoanalysist specialising in youth […]
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Citizens who want to guard their privacy
Posted June 14, 2013 by Politis
Tips from an article in today’s New Scientist on how to resist the efforts of governments to encroach on their privacy. “… for citizens who want to guard their privacy, there are a number of options. Apps like Silent Circle and RedPhone can already encrypt your calls and send them over a data connection or […]
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Human Rights Watch on Greece’s other crisis
Posted January 20, 2013 by KK
Excerpts from a post yesterday on the Human Rights Watch site. “Partly hidden within [the] turmoil [of Greece’s sovereign debt crisis] is another crisis threatening to spin out of control – xenophobic violence against migrants and asylum seekers in Athens and elsewhere. Violence against people from Afghanistan and North and sub-Saharan Africa is alarmingly commonplace, […]
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Nextdoor: a Facebook for your neighborhood
Posted April 1, 2013 by Politis
Alexia Tsotsis has written an engaging review in TechCrunch of the neighborhood social media service Nextdoor. The platform is a de facto neighborhood support group among subscribers. Nextdoor now serves some 10,000 neighborhoods and roughly 1 million households, and has a very savvy matrix for developing a local network to its optimal level. Users explain […]
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Big fish eat small fish: Greece way
Posted February 22, 2013 by Politis
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One click off
Posted June 4, 2012 by pdcadmin
By Kathryn Lukey-Coutsocostas* Globalization has us readily accepting goods from other lands into our homes. But can countries absorb imported citizens just as easily? Whenever I join the crowd to criticize a line-jumper in a queue in Greece, someone inevitably tries to muzzle me with the classic insider-outsider putdown: “You’re not Greek.” Apparently, only locals […]
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Center. Period.
Posted April 4, 2013 by Politis
A soon-to-be-released book by Charles Wheelen called The Centrist Manifesto is described thus on the web site of amazon.com. “A vision—and detailed road map to power—for a new party that will champion America’s rational center. From debt ceiling standoffs to single-digit Congress approval ratings, America’s political system has never been more polarized—or paralyzed—than it is […]
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What to do about getting the story out and getting the people organized
Posted April 10, 2013 by Politis
By Maria Kalogeroudi Two speakers with a common concern: acting against racial prejudice. The one, a journalist, the other, a community organizer. Meet Damian Mac Con Uladh. Damian is an activist journalist who used to work for Athens News. He explained what an activist journalist is: a journalist for whom the boundaries between personal and […]
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Administrative reform and the Greek parties
Posted June 4, 2012 by pdcadmin
By Konstantinos Bouas The ongoing administrative reform effort is one of the most critical issues of concern for administrative science in Greece. Considering the longstanding structural weaknesses of the public administration, as well as the explicit commitments of the Greek State deriving from the Memorandum, it is easy to realize the urgency of immediate and effective […]
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She faces the music
Posted May 12, 2013 by M P
By Maria Patsarika “She faces the music” – I can’t think of a better way to express my own thoughts about Kiki Dimoula, a great (the greatest?) poet of our times, and the uproar that her apparently xenophobic public comments caused. My inital reaction was surprise and disappointment in her. Greek intellectuals appear perplexed, lacking […]
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What we need in politics today
Posted April 20, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Maria Kalogeroudi I just read a post by Angelos Barbalios. This guy is what we need in today’s politics: enthusiastic and young. I like how his article is straight to the point, yet any college student who is psyched about politics could generate such a blog entry. Still a very interesting blog to follow […]
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Center right, center right
Posted March 19, 2013 by Politis
We all know the two rules of business, according to which 1) the boss is always right, and 2) if the boss is wrong, see rule number one. In American politics it would appear that the Republican Party has replaced the boss. Bloomberg has been investigating the phenomenon in US electoral politics according to which […]
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Paraphrase of the day: 6/6/13
Posted June 5, 2013 by Politis
If you are reading these lines, you are very weird. You’re spending spare time considering arguments about politics, which most people don’t bother to do. — Ezra Klein
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And what about the political corruption?
Posted March 12, 2013 by M P
By Maria Patsarika I read an article by Thanasis Skokos in Protagon yesterday about corruption. Actually, it is one of the many articles out there discussing the extent to which politicians who have misused power and public funds are now confronting justice and people’s outrage. Laying responsibilities on the financial side of things is a […]
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Public service: commitment and payback
Posted June 20, 2014 by Politis
By Brian Newby I’m blessed to be in a job that truly feels like it matches against my skills. There are many facets to overseeing elections, from public relations to candidate relations, from high-tech to situations that require a human touch, from logistics to statistics, and everything in between. I have a hard time considering […]
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Should we look to ancient Athens?
Posted April 21, 2016 by Politis
By Claudia Chwalisz Editor’s note: Originally published on policy-network.net as “An Athenian solution to democratic discontent,” February 19, 2015. Reposted by permission of the author. New forms of contact democracy and innovative forums that allow political and economic institutions to deliberate with citizens are important steps in the long-term battle to renew representative democracy for the […]
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Golden Dawn: before and after?
Posted October 3, 2013 by Politis
Excerpts below from an article by Clark Boyd of Public Radio International’s The World on possible consequences of the recent arrest of members of Golden Dawn. The author cites Politis’ good friend Brady Kiesling, former political affairs officer at the US Embassy in Athens. …/… “[I]n the wake of the arrest of a number of […]
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Freedom requires virtue and courage
Posted November 11, 2013 by M P
By Maria Patsarika “Θέλει αρετή και τόλμη η ελευθερία” – Andreas Kalvos “It is inevitable that the Greek people will go through hardships to get through the crisis… Inevitably some businesses will have to close down,” Giannis Vroutsis, Minister of Employment, has observed. This is the mantra of our times: a fashionable stoicism that makes […]
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We don’t get to choose these things
Posted January 10, 2015 by DW
By David Wisner Armchair expert on the Greek sovereign debt crisis that I have portrayed myself to be, you can imagine my relative despondency having read Pavlos Eleftheriadis’ article on Greece’s oligarchs in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs. Reading Eleftheriadis’ account of recent Greek history, it appears that one should have given up the […]