A Citizen’s Guide to Greece 2015
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Of technical competence
Posted February 27, 2013 by Politis
What do politicians do when they are not politicians? Or better yet, what did they do before they became politicians? Two scholars, Mark Hallerberg and Joachim Wehner, asked more or less these questions. They were particularly interested in the circumstances when an electorate would choose technocrats to lead a government. Their findings? “Our analysis of data […]
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Yes? No? Vote, and stay engaged
Posted July 3, 2015 by DW
We have an expression in the US. “Vote early and often.” Lest you think I am encouraging you to commit voter fraud, I actually have something else in mind. If you vote when young you are likely to continue to want to vote whenever you have the opportunity. Make it a habit. Just look at […]
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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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Citizen: the pariah of the political sphere
Posted May 8, 2012 by pdcadmin
By Dimitrios Machairas “Man is a political animal”, said The Philosopher some twenty-four centuries ago in a stroke of insight and conciseness… One might expect that, after all this time, humans would have mastered their egotistical instincts, perfected their political systems, and optimized the promotion of the common good through collective governance. Unfortunately, we are […]
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Announcing CTY Greece
Posted May 16, 2013 by Politis
Helping strengthen civil society in Greece.
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Civic engagement and the practices of democracy
Posted April 8, 2016 by Politis
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Saying of the day: 4/17/13
Posted April 17, 2013 by Politis
“When the civilian bystanders to the attack ran toward the first blast to give aid to the victims, without a second thought for their own safety, the primary desire of the terrorists — to paralyze a populace with fear — was already thwarted. ” — Dennis Lehane
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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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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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The best and the brightest
Posted September 19, 2015 by DW
In the spring of 2006 I invited Pavlos Geroulanos to visit the Dukakis Center to speak on the topic of “youth and politics.” At the time Geroulanos was something like chief of staff to the then-president of PASOK, George Papandreou, having recently returned to Greece from the US, where he had done an MBA at […]
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Tax paying as civic duty
Posted April 3, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner I file my tax returns in Greece and in the US. I read this comment by Lawrence A. Zelenak in the New York Times as a welcome counterpoint to all the negative press generated throughout the Western world about tax evasion. “In the next two weeks, Americans rushing to file their returns by […]
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Civil servants’ woes — UK
Posted January 28, 2013 by Politis
The Guardian has an article today on the plight of a large number of disgruntled British civil servants. “Two-thirds of Britain’s most senior civil servants are so demoralised that they are considering leaving their jobs, according to the first survey of mandarins to be conducted since the coalition’s reform plans were published,” they write. The […]
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Light on the Cypriot horizon
Posted March 27, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Javier Solana Once again, Europe has peered into the abyss. But the tentative agreement between Cyprus and the troika (the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank) probably means that the worst has been avoided. Big losses for large depositors in Cypriot banks will now be imposed, and the country’s […]
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On the “social” economy
Posted January 30, 2014 by DW
Politis recently published a post on efforts in Northern Greece to encourage active citizens to involve themselves in matters of “social economy.” Below we share excerpts on the subject from an article by Andrew Higgins in the New York Times. “In their search for solutions, Greeks are tinkering with a new kind of economy with […]
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Does this count as participation?
Posted May 20, 2013 by Politis
Do IT and civic engagement mix and match? What do you think these young people are reading (and/or writing) on their smart phones? Are young people more active as a result of being more “connected?” Maybe, maybe not. Judith Froemming writes, “A true zombie is nothing more than an unconscious being apathetically and lifelessly lumbering […]
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Kostas Ifantis at the Dukakis Center
Posted March 21, 2016 by Politis
The Michael and Kitty Dukakis Center for Public and Humanitarian Service at the American College of Thessaloniki in collaboration with Navarino Network and the Kalliopi Koufa Foundation Cordially invite you to attend a Dukakis Lecture by Kostas Ifantis Panteion and Kadir Has Universities Greece and Turkey: Neighbours in a […]
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The European response to the global migration crisis
Posted November 10, 2016 by Politis
By Lauren Rothschild NB Lauren Rothschild is a Freshman at Northeastern University majoring in international relations and political science and studying abroad at ACT and interning at the Dukakis Center during the Fall 2016 semester. On Saturday October 22nd, the Olympion Theater in Thessaloniki hosted the 5th annual symposium on World Affairs, with this year’s […]
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Choose4Greece II, 17 June 2012 Elections
Posted June 8, 2012 by ip-admin
Choose4Greece is an online application which calculates voters’ ideological congruence with political parties for the June 17 elections in Greece. Choose4Greece II represents an update, which takes into consideration the changes in the Greek political party landscape, on the initial application that was launched because of the significance of the May 6 general election and […]
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Enough with meaningless political speeches
Posted October 23, 2013 by KK
By Krysta Kalachani I’ve read Kyriakos Pierrakakis’ recent interview in Ethnos. Any thoughts, you ask? A bunch of words describing what has to be done in order to find solutions in this country, seemingly through the left. But without any practical substance in it. I mean we all (almost all) know what has to be […]
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Peter Economides on the Cypriot miracle
Posted March 24, 2013 by Politis
Peter Economides has a post in praise of Cypriots on his blog. “There is no such thing as a financial crisis. It’s the result of a social crisis, a values crisis, a confidence crisis, a how we feel about ourselves crisis. And I am starting to feel that the current European crisis is a crisis […]