A Citizen’s Guide to Greece 2015
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Would you swear an oath to the Queen?
Posted July 11, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner The Globe and Mail ran a story yesterday about “would-be Canadian citizens” who are up in arms about the oath of allegiance they must swear to the British monarch prior to earning full rights as citizens of Canada. The Citizenship Act requires applicants for citizenship to swear or affirm they will be […]
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Dukakis Center and Politis participate in cleanup weekend
Posted June 10, 2012 by ip-admin
Students and faculty from Anatolia and ACT, and the Dukakis Center took part in two clean up activities in Thessaloniki on the weekend of June 9-10, 2012. First, a group of volunteer citizens helped clean up the beach behind the Hondos Center in the Florida shopping center, part of a city-wide initiative led by Thessaloniki […]
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Turkey and the EU redux
Posted June 3, 2013 by Politis
This is a question on the tip of many people’s tongues, in Europe and elsewhere. As the folks at Debating Europe phrase it: should Turkey join the European Union? Have events in Turkey the past few days changed opinions about the intentions and objectives of the current Turkish government?
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Saying of the day: 3/30/13
Posted March 30, 2013 by Politis
“… we still have a system that treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent.” — Bryan Stevenson
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315 charts on poverty and inequality
Posted May 15, 2013 by Politis
The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development has just released data on poverty and inequality for all OECD mamber states in the form of some 315 charts, including one interactive chart on income distribution and poverty.
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Vote for Angie!
Posted September 9, 2013 by Politis
Fears in Germany that conservative voters may abstain from voting in the coming German national election. Their response: erotic dancers. Would the picture of this semi-nude performer inspire you to vote?
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World Press Freedom Day
Posted May 15, 2013 by Politis
“Living in silence is not living, in any corner of the planet. Living and remaining silent about how the corrupt, crime and impunity continue to take ahold of my country is also to die. Without freedom of expression, justice and democracy are not possible.” — Anabel Hernández, Mexican investigative journalist living under 24 hour police […]
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Citizen election monitoring in Kenya
Posted March 2, 2013 by Politis
Politis is interested in citizen activism round the world, not only in Greece. We report here about an interesting article in Deutsche Welle on a grass roots initiative aiming to monitor the upcoming election in Kenya, using a platform developed by a company called Ushahidi. Ushahidi calls itself a “non-profit tech company that changes the […]
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What is needed now
Posted June 4, 2012 by pdcadmin
By Marten van Heuven The author is a retired senior US diplomat with extensive experience in European affairs. He contributed this note in response to an invitation by Politis for thoughts on the trans-Atlantic dimensions of the crisis in Greece and the eurozone. I find the situation in Greece and in Europe unsettling, in part […]
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Una fatsa (una faccia)? Is Italy headed toward a “Greek-style” crisis?
Posted March 15, 2013 by KK
By Krista Kalachani I just found a small gap to write a couple of things about what is happening in Italy. If you checked the newspapers in Italy this week, apart from the Pope’s election which is probably the most important news story of the week, one of the things that has been circulating is […]
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Lazy Greeks? Civil society making its mark
Posted May 28, 2013 by Politis
Who’s doing what and where to get Greece out of this mess, courtesy of the Omikron Project.
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Why are our legislatures unresponsive?
Posted May 29, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner We often have the sense that politics is not working, yet conceivably it is working all too well, if what we expect from politicians is that they will prioritize getting elected and then getting reelected. Robert Kaiser has a keen perspective on what has happened in the US federal government, and one […]
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Austerity cuts Greek household income 38%
Posted February 8, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Andy Dabilis “The severity of Greece’s crushing economic crisis and austerity measures demanded by international lenders has drastically cut the incomes of more than 90 percent of Greek households, with an average drop of 38 percent. The startling numbers that illustrated how bad the crisis is for most Greeks, apart from politicians, the rich […]
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Civic education in Greece*
Posted February 24, 2012 by DW
By David Wisner Last November the Dukakis Center hosted an international symposium on political reform in Greece. We brought in a wide variety of distinguished practitioners, scholars, and journalists to engage in a frank public conversation about how the Greece of tomorrow might appear. We gave equal time to students and young professionals, however, and […]
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We can’t help it!
Posted January 31, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner I often tell my politics students that people have a natural predisposition to act and think politically. What we do with this is the great challenge of contemporary citizenship and civic education. Two recent articles in the mainstream media challenge our thinking about different dimensions of homo politicus. Some people seem to […]
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Afghanistan on the Aegean?
Posted June 25, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Alexis Papahelas It won’t be long before the relationship between Greece and the troika starts resembling that of the United States with Afghanistan. The efficient Americans entered that historical and complex country and tried to set up a modern state, an open economy etc. Not long after they started to realize that they were […]
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Participedia
Posted May 8, 2013 by Politis
Participedia is an open global knowledge community for researchers and practitioners in the field of democratic innovation and public engagement. “We live in a world in which citizens of most countries are asking for greater involvement in collective decisions. Many governments, non-governmental organizations, and even some corporations are responding by experimenting with ways to increase public […]
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Saying of the day: 5/20/13
Posted May 20, 2013 by Politis
“Men with guns I’m used to. But kids without books, teachers or classes for a long time — that’s trouble. Big trouble. “ — Thomas Friedman
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The Politics of Nation-Building: Harris Mylonas in Thessaloniki
Posted June 13, 2013 by Politis
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Could this work in Greece?
Posted March 17, 2013 by Politis
The Project on Government Oversight seeks to “provoke accountability” in the workings of the US Federal Government. About POGO Founded in 1981, POGO originally worked to expose outrageously overpriced military spending on items such as a $7,600 coffee maker and a $436 hammer. In 1990, after many successes reforming military spending, including a Pentagon spending […]