A Citizen’s Guide to Greece 2015
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The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
Posted August 19, 2015 by DW
Last year I published a Kindle e-book on the Greek sovereign debt crisis. I wanted to understand, and explain to non-Greek readers, why Greeks behaved as they had during the crisis, and why they might have acted other than an American readership might have anticipated. I framed the story I told as a contemporary version […]
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This is citizenship in action!
Posted February 24, 2012 by pdcadmin
By Maria Patsarika October 27, 2011 may now seem as a distant instantané of the eurozone crisis. However, at that time, it was seen by many as a victorious day, after having agreed a deal that slashed the Greek debt to 50%. As with all such deals, however, this one, too, had winners and losers; […]
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Neo-nazi hate in Greece
Posted May 23, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Nicholas Burns In Athens, a popular far-right party condemns Jews as a source of the country’s misfortune and recycles the ancient lie depicting them as “Christ killers.” In Hungary, the prime minister fails to disassociate himself convincingly from an anti-Semitic and increasingly powerful fascist group. Scenes from Europe in the 1930s? No. Both examples, […]
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GovLab
Posted April 21, 2013 by Politis
“The Governance Lab (The GovLab) aims to improve people’s lives by changing how we govern. We are seeking new ways to solve public problems using advances in technology and science. Innovations in technology and science are empowering individuals to engage with one another – and with traditional institutions of governance – to tackle problems more […]
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53 seconds
Posted February 23, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Nikos Xydakis Last Sunday, during Spain’s biggest annual cinematic event, an actress from Catalonia walked onto the stage to receive the Goya Award from the Spanish Film Academy for best actress, marking the third major prize she has won in her career. Candela Pena, a Mediterranean brunette in her 40s who looks a little […]
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Open the doors/where are the people?
Posted April 3, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner Growing up my friends and I used to play a small game with our hands. We would start with our hands clasped, thumbs aligned, index fingers erect. “Here is the church/here is the steeple/open the doors/where are the people?” We would then interlock our fingers and perform the same series of steps: […]
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Second chance?
Posted February 24, 2013 by M P
By Maria Patsarika Is there a second chance for democracy, as Nikos Marantzidis claimed in Protagon last week? For one to be able to identify a positive orientation for populism in politics is a fresh, however risky, perspective on democratic renewal. When this is accompanied by concrete suggestions, however, the argument becomes even more robust […]
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Political extremism and violence
Posted April 25, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner Takis Michas has written about political extremism and violence in today’s Protagon. “Is there really a difference,” he asks, “between the violent tactics used or condoned by SYRIZA (riots, occupations of public buildings, harassment of university teachers, intimidation of political opponents, hate speech etc ) and those used or condoned by Golden […]
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Send an SMS to your Congressman
Posted April 3, 2013 by Politis
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.
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Up a creek…
Posted June 17, 2013 by DW
What is the expression again, “up a creek without a paddle?”
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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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Repower Greece: Ideas and Solutions to restore the credibility of Greece and move forward
Posted December 11, 2012 by PR
Livestreaming from Here
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Revolt of the clowns (the real ones)
Posted March 2, 2013 by Politis
Der Spiegel has a story according to which professional clowns in Germany are up in arms regarding a comment made by the leader of the German opposition, Social Democrat Peer Steinbrück, comparing Italian political figures Silvio Berlusconi and Beppe Grillo to clowns. “A circus clown is no fool who can be placed on the same […]
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We are fed up
Posted May 30, 2012 by Politis
By Politis We live in Greece. Most of us are Hellenes, a few others foreigners who reside here by choice; we have all lived and studied abroad. We have different ideological preferences. Some of us work for public entities, others in the private sector. A few of us run our own businesses, trying to keep […]
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“Public administration is almost a bad word…”
Posted June 3, 2013 by Politis
The Volcker Alliance was launched in 2013 to address the challenge of effective execution of public policies and to rebuild public trust in government. As a nonpartisan organization based in New York City, the Volcker Alliance aims to catalyze new thinking and action with respect to federal, state, and local government in the U.S. and […]
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NGOs and learning the ways of the world
Posted March 30, 2014 by KK
By Krysta This story is a little old already, but I am reading about the Greek ngos. I have two experiences of how ngos and think tanks work in Greece… dyed “blue” or “green” or whatever color pays… not the unbiased work I thought they would be doing, but I guess it was part of […]
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The broken shackles of social media
Posted November 5, 2013 by pdcadmin
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 […]