A Citizen’s Guide to Greece 2015
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Could citizenship ever be like surfing?
Posted June 27, 2013 by Politis
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Social entrepreneurialism twisted
Posted June 19, 2013 by M P
By Maria Patsarika Did you know about Bitcoin, the virtual currency? I didn’t. I found out this weekend reading the FT magazine. Bitcoin is one of the many entrepreneurial initiatives that feature all too often in the media. It is a monetary storage and distribution digital system, which enables transactions through exchange of codes, rather […]
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Life lessons from Cyprus
Posted March 22, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Edward Scicluna, Minister of Finance, Malta There is nothing more undignified than the sight of a bankrupt person begging for assistance. The contrasts between the cosy and sometimes sumptuous living before the event and the state of helplessness and destitution soon after are stark indeed. While generous persons may come forward to offer their […]
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Opa!
Posted May 30, 2013 by Politis
A nice ad from Aegean. When you come to Greece learn to do it the Greek way.
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A Greek winner!
Posted March 22, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Christina Flora A Greek team of student-entrepreneurs won first place at the Pan-European trade fair, organized by the international organization Junior Achievement Europe (JA-YE), in Riga, Latvia, with 450 pupils from secondary schools and high schools from 30 countries of Europe and Africa participating. Business ideas were presented in the exhibition and combined technology […]
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The cruel fact
Posted February 16, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner I faced a small crisis the other day when one of the students whom I advise failed a course in his last semester at college. I discussed the issue and solicited from colleagues ways to resolve the student’s predicament while remaining firmly within school rules and, above all, seeking to uphold a […]
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The New Byzantine
Posted May 3, 2012 by DW
By David Wisner Byzantine: …excessively complicated and detailed… (Oxford English Dictionary) I went to my local mall this past weekend. Malls are interesting places to observe human behavior, and it strikes me that they may be seen as microcosms of the state. A mall is at once a symbol of affluence and symptom of globalization. […]
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Life at uni
Posted December 2, 2012 by Politis
There has been a lot of talk of late about the future of higher education in Greece. The public universities might appear to some to be a microcosm of all of Greece, in which things are clearly falling apart. Lo and behold, the news is not all bad, however. As the author of a recent […]
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Who wants to …?
Posted January 25, 2015 by DW
Election day is nigh upon us. With this in mind, there are three dimensions to the question I have been thinking of asking: Who wants to run, who wants to vote, and who wants to govern. In May 2014 the Dukakis Center examined an apparent inflation in the number of candidates running for local and […]
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The ultimate American decline story?
Posted May 22, 2013 by Politis
Mattea Kramer and Jo Comerford posted this article on the Moyers and Complany blog. It depicts one of the most extreme visions of 21st-century American decline in print. Politis reposts excerpts of the article below. “The streets are so much darker now, since money for streetlights is rarely available to municipal governments. The national parks […]
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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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More center right, center left
Posted January 14, 2013 by Politis
This just in from Fishbowl DC: After dropping out of the presidential election and a two season-long Republican bashing media tour, Jon Huntsman is ready to lead along with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). The pair, along with Republican Strategist Mark McKinnon, are founders of “No Labels” a project aimed at fostering bipartisanship in Congress. Huntsman […]
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Mirrors of democracy: “Black mirror,” S01E01
Posted March 30, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Maria Mavrommati The first episode of British Channel 4′s mini-series Black Mirror (2011) explores the nature of modern democracy in the most colorful ways. The dominance of image (with “image” meaning both a visual representation of something and a popular conception of someone), television language and conventional understanding of the essence of truth 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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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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A few thoughts on urban citizenship
Posted April 27, 2012 by pdcadmin
By Anna-Maria Konsta In today’s insecure globalized world, where state and supranational structures seem to be collapsing, there are good reasons to reconnect citizenship with the city, especially if we focus on a “bottom-up” approach of citizenship and on citizenship as practice and participation. Contemporary urban theorists emphasize a number of characteristics of cities and […]
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The NSRF phenomenon – or, The dangers of ΕΣΠΑ
Posted December 2, 2012 by M P
By Maria Patsarika Some months ago I had an interesting conversation with a friend about what it means to achieve fulfillment in life. This was prompted by the dilemma that we face nowadays perhaps more acutely than ever: how can someone retain one’s ethos and character when modern times is characterised by such fluidity, uncertainty […]
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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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Athens, city of contrasts
Posted November 29, 2013 by KK
By Krysta Kalachani I have been asked whether the Enri Canaj’s photographs of the darker sides of Athens are representative in any way of what is happening these days in Athens. I first saw them some time ago, in fact. I think I had posted a link on Facebook. I see that there is some debate […]
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More on those pesky 16 year-old Scottish voters
Posted June 9, 2013 by DW
The British think tank Demos has put this short video out arguing the merits of allowing 16 and 17 year-old citizens the right to vote in Scotland.