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In May 2019, regional elections were held in Greece, simultaneously with municipal and European elections. The regional elections were placed right at the end of the national electoral cycle and na...

This article aims to address the social and political role of political scientists in Greece, which has been at the centre of the Eurozone crisis, resulting in the most troubled period in the country’s recent political history, namely the campaign week of the July 2015 bailout referendum. To that end, the article relies, on the one hand, on the PROSEPS survey data to identify the extent to which Greek political scientists engage in public debate in general and how they view the social role of their discipline. On the other hand, we used a content analysis of the leading national TV media during the aforementioned week to examine how much Greek political scientists participated in the public debate in comparison with other social scientists, and what were their stances on specific issues and dimensions, such as the framing of the European Union. In addition, we also delve into the stance of Greek political scientists who participated in the public debate regarding the referendum itself. The study results revealed a potential bias; political scientists who pronounce themselves in favour of the status quo seem to receive more invitations to participate in televised debates.

This article explores changes in the relationship between attitudinal and participatory dimensions of politics, and age in Southern European countries. We look at how attitudes towards the politica...

Significance Cooperation is key to well-functioning groups and societies. Rather than addressing high-cost cooperation involving giving money or time and effort, we examine social mindfulness—a form of interpersonal benevolence that requires basic perspective-taking and is aimed at leaving choice for others. Do societies differ in social mindfulness, and if so, does it matter? Here, we find not only considerable variation across 31 nations and regions but also an association between social mindfulness and countries’ performance on environmental protection. We conclude that something as small and concrete as interpersonal benevolence can be entwined with current and future issues of global importance., Humans are social animals, but not everyone will be mindful of others to the same extent. Individual differences have been found, but would social mindfulness also be shaped by one’s location in the world? Expecting cross-national differences to exist, we examined if and how social mindfulness differs across countries. At little to no material cost, social mindfulness typically entails small acts of attention or kindness. Even though fairly common, such low-cost cooperation has received little empirical attention. Measuring social mindfulness across 31 samples from industrialized countries and regions (n = 8,354), we found considerable variation. Among selected country-level variables, greater social mindfulness was most strongly associated with countries’ better general performance on environmental protection. Together, our findings contribute to the literature on prosociality by targeting the kind of everyday cooperation that is more focused on communicating benevolence than on providing material benefits.

The chapter delves into the historical evolution, the characteristics, and the dynamics of the Greek party system. It presents the transformations that it has undergone in its historical course, focusing on the period after the economic crisis, by employing key concepts, covering important electoral contests, and presenting the most relevant political parties. More specifically, the Greek party system has moved from largely a system of a predominant party before the 1967 dictatorship, to limited polarized pluralism after the restoration of democracy in 1974, and then to one of the most stable two-party systems in Europe from 1981 until the onset of the economic crisis, with PASOK and New Democracy monopolizing power between them. Nationally minded versus Left, Right versus anti-Right, social liberalism versus social conservatism and, lately, pro-European versus anti-European, have been the major dimensions of conflict of the Greek party system. After decades of high institutionalization and moderate volatility, the party system imploded in the 2012 twin earthquake elections, demonstrating massive dealignment and fragmentation, with PASOK almost vanishing and new actors, like SYRIZA, acquiring the status of relevant parties. Radical, anti-systemic parties, like Golden Dawn, also gained prominence and the party system transformed into a polarized multi-partyism. Almost a decade into the crisis, the Greek party system shows signs of a hesitant stabilization and, even, indications of a weak re-emerging bi-partyism between New Democracy and SYRIZA, posing the question as to whether it will reach a new equilibrium and what this equilibrium will be, in terms of format and internal dynamics.

The austerity measures and structural reforms that Greece had to undertake since 2010 in exchange for financial aid divided the Greek political system into pro-austerity and anti-austerity camps. These divisions reached a climax with the July 2015 referendum. The paper attempts to assess the extent that to which the geographic patterns that emerged in voting were due to the differentiated economic regional impact of economic crisis. Using economic voting theory as a benchmark, and employing spatial econometric methods, the study contributes to a largely ignored topic, known as geographies of economic voting, providing new and valuable insights for an under-researched time period.

Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriateness of various responses to a violation of a cooperative norm and to atypical social behaviors. Our findings highlight both cultural universals and cultural variation. We find a universal negative relation between appropriateness ratings of norm violations and appropriateness ratings of responses in the form of confrontation, social ostracism and gossip. Moreover, we find the country variation in the appropriateness of sanctions to be consistent across different norm violations but not across different sanctions. Specifically, in those countries where use of physical confrontation and social ostracism is rated as less appropriate, gossip is rated as more appropriate.

Το παρόν άρθρο αποσκοπεί στην εξήγηση των (υποκειμενικών) αναδιανεμητικών προτιμήσεων των νέων, μιας ομάδας της οποίας οι προτιμήσεις δεν έχουν τύχει μεγάλης προσοχής, παραδόξως. Διερευνώνται οι προτιμήσεις έναντι ευθέως αναδιανεμητικών πολιτικών και θεσμών της αγοράς εργασίας. Εφαρμόζεται μια ερευνητική στρατηγική δύο σταδίων, με σκοπό να εντοπιστεί η επίδραση της πληροφόρησης και των προσωπικών οικονομικών προοπτικών, της ιδεολογίας και των πολιτικών στάσεων, σε δείγμα 533 φοιτητών. Η πληροφόρηση, δηλαδή η άρση, εν προκειμένω, του διαφανούς πέπλου άγνοιας των φοιτητών, δεν επηρεάζει τις προτιμήσεις τους. Οι τελευταίες διαμορφώνονται μέσω δύο μηχανισμών: του ιδεολογικοπολιτικού και του πολιτικοοικονομικού. Ο δεύτερος επηρεάζει την ένταση και όχι το περιεχόμενο των προτιμήσεων, This paper adds to the literature on subjective redistributive preferences. Ιt aims at explaining the preferences of young people, a theme which has, paradoxically, been underresearched. The paper explores specific preferences over a range of redistributive policies and labour market institutions. A two-stage research strategy is employed to trace the impact of information, as well as the influence of self-interest, personal economic prospects, ideology, and political attitudes on redistributive preferences in a sample of 533 students. The provision of information – that is, lifting the porous veil of ignorance facing young persons – has virtually no effect on preferences. Two mechanisms are uncovered: an ideological-political and a political-economic one. The latter explains the intensity of redistributive preferences, but not their content and direction.

In January 2015 an early parliamentary election was held in Greece, amidst harsh economic conditions and the saliency of the issue of Greece’s relations with the European Union. The election, won by the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), marked a popular will for a total change of the governing paradigm and economic policies and, at the same time, confirmed that in countries that face economic crisis and have signed bail-out agreements entailing harsh austerity measures, government parties are sooner or later punished by the electorate, albeit in different degrees. In terms of systemic trends, the January 2015 election confirmed for the Greek party system an unstable process of acquiring a new shape. © 2015 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

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In this paper the views of a sample of 74 Greek Members of Parliament (MPs) on European integration and the handling of the economic crisis by the EU are discussed and interpreted. The survey of MPs, which was conducted in 2014, is a replication of a comparable study conducted in 2007. Greek MPs continue to be attached to Europe, but evaluate negatively EU’s institutions’ role during the economic crisis. Overall, three groups of parliamentarians, namely pro-government MPs, parliamentarians self-placed at the centre of the left-right spectrum and more experienced MPs, tended to have more pro-European views and attitudes than MPs of the opposition, left-wing MPs and less experienced MPs. The dominant dimension of conflict for Greek political elites is the issue of the Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs). The SYRIZA-ANEL government that was formed after the January 2015 elections was not a surprise given the close proximity of these two parties on their stance towards the MoUs and the EU.

In May 2014, municipal and regional elections were held in Greece, concurrently with European elections. This was the first electoral test after the 2012 twin earthquake elections, which marked the beginning of a radical restructuring of the Greek political system. The fragmentation and inconsistency of voting behaviour across different polls in 2014 indicate that Greek politics remains in a transitional phase whose final outcome is still contested. Other characteristics of the elections, including the high proportion of independent candidates, the radical renewal of political personnel and the emergence of Berlusconism in two major municipalities, underline the continuing lack of legitimacy of the political system. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.