By Jiya Pinder Some weeks ago, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras made the decision to shut down the state broadcaster, The Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation. The decision has sparked the discussion of social media role and origins in Greece. Rachel Donadio, the author of “Greeks Question Media, and New Voices Pipe Up” in the New York […]
By Jannis Papadimitriou Greece’s lenders have urged the country to reduce its excessive state apparatus. But few people trust that will be possible. Political clientelism and patronage have a long tradition in Greece’s administrative bodies. Back in the fall of 2012, the Greek coalition government under Conservative leader Antonis Samaras promised to lay off 15,000 […]
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 […]
This weekly feature offers a glimpse of what is happening in and around Thessaloniki. Compiled by Laura Strieth. Thu 14th to Sun17th March – Slava’s Snowshow- The multi-award winning international sensation, Slava’s Snowshow, will be performing in Thessaloniki. Experience a joyous dream-like world which will touch both your heart and funny bone, culminating in a […]
By Konstantinos Bouas and Petros Katsimardos Introduction Human Resource Management policy is probably the most important challenge for Greek public administration, given the severe on-going crisis and the need to sharply reduce public expenditure. The high remuneration cost of Greek public servants (13,6% of GDP in 2009, against only 11% of OECD member countries [1]), […]
By Krysta Kalachani I have been following this website from time to time for a year or more, and particularly one of the contributors, Jerome Roos, who started writing when the Syntagma gatherings started taking place. Here is his bio, taken from the magazine’s web site: “Jérôme E. Roos is a PhD researcher in International […]
By Graham Hill I live in a 420-square-foot studio. I sleep in a bed that folds down from the wall. I have six dress shirts. I have 10 shallow bowls that I use for salads and main dishes. When people come over for dinner, I pull out my extendable dining room table. I don’t have […]
By Michael Ertel NB Michael Ertel is Supervisor of Elections in Seminole County, Florida, where he has served since 2005. He spoke at two Dukakis Center events during the 2016 election period. Politis reproduces these remarks with permission of the author. When I tearfully hugged our staff as they left the building last night, my […]
By Elias Kulukundis November 17 should be a national holiday. The courage of the unarmed students at the Athens Polytechnic led to the overthrow of the junta, and the day on which it, November 17, should not be a partisan political symbol that divides Left and Right, but a way for all Greeks to come […]
The Canadian paper Globe & Mail has published a searching editorial on the circumstances under which citizenship might be revoked. The case at hand involves the question of what punishment to mete out to Canadians who commit acts of terror or acts of war against Canada — or, by extension, to any Canadian person having […]
We all know the expression, “Send a letter to your Congressman.” A company in India has just launched a Short Message Service (SMS)-based grievances redress mechanism in India, essentially to do just that. There is no indication yet how frequently citizens will use the service, or how well the system will function.
By David Wisner “Phew, that was tough,” is the initial impression left behind by Nick Malkoutzis in his comment in the pages of today’s Kathimerini English edition. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, now. “And like that… poof, the crisis is gone. More bailout loans approved by the Eurogroup, a sovereign rating upgrade from Fitch, […]
By Fotini Kalliri, Kathimerini, Athens Every so often experts talk about the systemic nature of the crisis in the Greek civil service, offering different opinions as to why the state mechanism is in such a shambles and cannot contribute in any positive way to the country’s economy and growth. One thing that they all agree […]
By David Wisner “The European Union is the new sick man of Europe. The effort over the past half century to create a more united Europe is now the principal casualty of the euro crisis. The European project now stands in disrepute across much of Europe.” So read the opening lines of a new report […]
In an article published this past weekend on TechCrunch, Michael Papay and David Timby ask what politics cannot work at the swift pace that contemporary business, aided by developments in information technology, can. In this high political season (the 2014 mid-term elections) “there’s not much constructive debate,” they lament, “and political gridlock has become the […]
It was in the wee hours between November 4-5, 2008. The news was filtering in that Barack Obama had defeated John McCain in the US Presidential election. If you were a Republican, and had experienced George W. Bush’s historic reelection in 2004, you were crestfallen. Congressional Republicans had just been routed again to make matters […]
Choose4Greece is an online application which calculates voters’ ideological congruence with political parties for the May 6 election in Greece. To which party would you be matched if you were a Greek voter? Greek citizens can find out which political parties they are closest to ideologically by using a new online tool designed by a group […]
On the TV news a few days ago Greek journalist Pavlos Tsimas suggested that the Greek government and several other EU member states, especially Germany, were engaged in a war of words. The next day Bloomberg said what Tsimas could not, or would not, alluding to a “Greek alternative reality,” a “twilight zone.” No less […]