A Citizen’s Guide to Greece 2015
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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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Editor’s Choice: Event of the week
Posted June 1, 2012 by laura
Parallaxi, a free-press magazine inThessaloniki who began the well known “ThessalonikiAllios” are organizing the 2nd annual effort to clean up the city ofThessaloniki. Thessaloniki Allios willbe reviving an area of Thessaloniki that has been left abandoned for a longtime, the coastline from Aretsous until Macedonia Airport. One mission will be to clean up the coastbehind […]
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A solution for Greece’s debt and immigration problems
Posted May 29, 2013 by Politis
Is this a hoax? We don’t know, but the idea might just be sound. Invest in a country and earn a non-resident passport for your troubles. It’s the Dominica Economic Citizenship Program. For 100,000 USD you can get a passport for yourself; 200,000 USD will buy you passports for your whole family, valid for 10 […]
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Freeman movement: government and/or sovereignty
Posted September 3, 2013 by DW
If you have a little time, this clip will explain why there should be no government. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RLHsH7XAkc
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The youth factor
Posted November 19, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Jiya Pinder Stability — economic, political and social — is a state that most countries strive for, any of the three aspects can offset or compromise the next, making national stability difficult to achieve for any government. In democratic societies and in societies in transition, “youth” play an essential role in maintaining stability. As […]
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Aristotle scholars head for Thessaloniki
Posted February 7, 2013 by Politis
Aristotle was, arguably, one of the fathers of the idea of public service. With this in mind Politis brings the following announcement to the attention of its gentle readers. “The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) on Feb. 13 will host an International Colloquium on Aristotle, featuring a series of lectures presented by researchers specialized in […]
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Greece: growth target pipedreams
Posted May 23, 2013 by Politis
In response to recent media commentary that Greece has turned the corner in its economic woes, Bloomberg’s Megen Greece had this to say earlier in the week. “The nature of economic activity in Greece also suggests that the European Commission’s growth target is a pipe dream. Although hedge funds have been active in buying Greek […]
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Can Facebook remake government?
Posted September 5, 2013 by Politis
Excerpts below from an article in TechCrunch last about about the prospect of Facebook and other social media to remake government around the world. Is there hope? Mark Zuckerberg has a grand vision that Facebook will help citizens in developing countries decide their own governments. It’s a lofty and partially attainable goal. While Egypt probably […]
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Inspiration Exchange
Posted May 16, 2012 by PR
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How geeks are taking over government
Posted June 14, 2013 by Politis
A very matter-of-fact clip in today’s Guardian on how open source technology is helping the British civil servants keep up with their work load — through the creation of “compelling digital services for government.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iahpVvPkCf4
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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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Fascists go to school
Posted March 13, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Damian Mac Con Uladh The growth in popularity of Golden Dawn in the country’s secondary schools and the wider problem of how to deal with fascism in the classroom is the subject of a conference at Athens University that starts on Wednesday. Over 20 university historians, social scientists and a psychoanalysist specialising in youth […]
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Feministiki protovoulia
Posted February 8, 2013 by KK
By Krysta Kalachani Feministiki protovoulia. A number of women’s groups participate in this blog. They are serious and active in a number of worthy causes, with a focus on violence against women. The blog itself suffers from a lack of copy editing, however. In their most recent post they ask for a reply from Syriza […]
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Paid for services rendered
Posted November 4, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Fotinie Efstratiadou Here is a story about a public servant — an employee at the public ambulance service in Northern Greece — who missed work for five years from 2006 to 2011 and yet was payed throughout without his superior having been notified. One is almost left speechless. What can one think of these […]
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Fathers, sons, and political preferences
Posted May 22, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner There is a wide ranging debate ongoing these days about the sources of political behavior, be they social or genetic. Elias Dinas of the University of Nottingham has published a very interesting bit of research on the effects on youth political socialization of politically engaged parents. The general question asked is how […]
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Saying of the day: 6/2/13
Posted June 2, 2013 by Politis
“At least he [Erdogan] is leaving us some crumbs. The previous bastards never gave us everything.” — Turkish supporter of the AKP
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From Delacroix to Dorian Grey
Posted February 10, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner If I were a photographer, I would take portraits of individual sitters. I would try to capture one’s eternal youthfulness, and yet simultaneously project the whole of one’s temporal experience. As I write these lines, I find myself thinking also that I might be able to discern the countenance of their personal […]
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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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What makes a [good] citizen?
Posted March 17, 2013 by MK
By Maria Patsarika What makes a citizen? I wonder, reading Matthew Engel’s article“UK citizenship tests: why we need them.” Does a certificate personify all attributes of citizenship in all its complexity? During the seven years that I spent in the UK the prospect of coming back home (to Greece) kept at bay the anxiety of […]
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@#$% democracy
Posted September 23, 2015 by DW
I first saw this illustration on Facebook early this past Monday morning, after I had read initial accounts in the Greek press on voter turnout in the September 20 general election. My first reflex was maybe to share it with awi tty caption. To be truthful, I experienced an odd combination of emotions when I […]