Refugees: their reception in Greece (1821-1989). Research-Documentation- Dissemination

The Research Programme: “Refugees: their reception  in Greece (1821-1989) - Research-Documentation-Dissemination” is sponsored by the Hellenic Parliament Foundation and will be carried out by the Unit for the History of Migrant and Refugee Movements, of the Research Centre for Modern History (KENI), and the Institute of Historical Research (IHR/NHRF), of the National Hellenic Research Foundation. Its scientific coordinators are Professor Lina Venturas and Research Director Dimitris Dimitropoulos

 

Sites of memory of the Greek Revolution (19th-20th century)

in cooperation with the Hellenic Parliament Foundation for Parliamentarism and Democracy

 Scientific Coordinator: Prof Ch. Koulouri

Research Group: K. Papathanasopoulou, PhD student

St. Pavlopoulos, PhD student

E. Pavlogeorgatou, PhD student

Ch. Tzagaroulaki, PhD

(read more...)

 

Hollowing Democracy, Party Politics and Social Protest During the ‘Great Recession’. The Case of Greece, 2008-2018


The impetus behind this project came from the observation that, despite the progress made over the last couple of decades, the concerted study of institutional and contentious politics (politics as governance and politics as struggle), itself a prerequisite for the stereoscopic understanding of the political phenomenon, is still lagging. As a result, in the context of conventional politology, the “Great Recession” tends to become normalized (without theoretical appraisal of the fact that it entails projects of domination), whilst studies focusing on popular mobilizations fail to break free from the straightjacket of descriptivism (without enough attention paid to the role that political mediation plays in their evolution and outcomes). Detailed study of the Greek case (2008-2018) –characterized by both the outbreak of extensive social protest and the overhaul of the party system– can help us overcome these problems. By revisiting concepts and key theoretical debates in both fields, en route to a robust interdisciplinarity, our research, in institutional politics (a) examines the nature of the “crisis” (via assessing diverse pertinent discourses); (b) records critical junctures in the process of democratic hollowing (e.g., transformations in the balance between legislature and executive); and (c) explores the mounting crisis of representation, by paying special attention to the internal functioning of parties. As far as contentious politics is concerned, we (a) take stock of new contentious repertoires by reconstructing the concept of “radicalization;” (b) highlight the subjective dimension of protest by undertaking qualitative-ethnographic analysis of the dominant value frames (by conducting interviews employing the method of visual essaying); and (c) carries out extensive protest-event-analysis whilst focusing on the process of political mediation. Combining our findings allows us, finally, to reflect on the future of democracy in Greece and Europe. Our findings will constitute a solid data base, other researchers will also be able to use (read more...)

 

Democracy in Times of Crisis: Power and Discourse in a Three-Level Game

Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (Project ref: PTDC/IVC-CPO/2247/2014)

Timeline of the project: 4/4/16 ongoing.

Panteion University participated in the program with the collaboration of the Assistant Prof. Stella Ladi.

While many studies have examined the content and effects of the reforms passed during the crisis in different countries (the 'what'), still very little is known about the process leading to their adoption (the 'how'). Moreover, two contradictory narratives co-exist in the scarce literature addressing this topic. On the one hand, scholars argue that governments have been forced to implement very specific reforms against their will, in return for bail-out loans (Ladi 2014) or after implicit blackmail by the ECB (Sacchi 2014). By contrast, other studies claim that the crisis empowered governments to pass reforms they wanted all along (Moury and Freire 2013). So which narrative is correct? Or, better: under which circumstances would one prevail? And which accountability issues do these processes raise?

 

 

1Comparative Analysis of Conspiracy Theories (COMPACT) - CA COST Action CA15101

Timeline of the project: 2016-2018

Panteion University participated in the program with the collaboration of the Associate Prof. Vasiliki Georgiadou, Anastasia Kafe and Vera Tika

The aim of this Action is to develop an interdisciplinary and international network to provide a comprehensive understanding of conspiracy theories. The Action will pursue the inquiry in three broad areas: the manifestations and modes of transmission of conspiracy theory in different historical and cultural contexts; the variety of actors and audiences involved in the production and consumption of conspiracy theories; and the psychological and cultural causes and political consequences of belief in conspiracy. Working closely with stakeholders, this Action will build a better understanding of conspiracy theories in order to develop an effective response to them.

 

 

 

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EXAMINING XENOPHOBIA IN GREECE DURING THE ECONOMIC CRISIS: A COMPUTATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

European Economic Area Financial Mechanism

Panteion University - Department of Political Science and History

in collaboration with Athena Research and Innovation Center in Information, Communication and Knowledge Technologies

Principal Investigator: Vasiliki Georgiadou

Research team: Ioannis Galariotis, Anastasia Kafe, Zinovia Laliouti

Timeline of the project: 9/2015-1/2017

The basic aim of this research effort is to examine the phenomenon of xenophobia in Greece through a large-scale multi-source study based on the use of advanced computational social science approaches. There is a common perception that xenophobia is a deep-rooted social phenomenon that reasonably escalates under circumstances of severe economic crisis. In line with this argument, xenophobia should have been raised in Greece after the outburst of the economic crisis in 2009. Drawing on a vast amount of data from a rich variety of sources and exploiting a wealth of research instruments, we will try in this study to test the validity of the above-mentioned argument targeting and addressing the following research goals:

  1. To study the historical evolution of the phenomenon of xenophobia in Greece from the 1990s onwards.
  2. To examine whether or not the recent economic crisis has raised the xenophobic sentiments and behaviour of Greeks against any kind of “others” and/or immigrants.
  3. To decompose the effect of the economic crisis on the behaviour of the Greek people against the “others” and immigrants in order to examine the expressions of continuity as well as the possibility of change with reference to xenophobia as a social phenomenon deeply rooted in the perceptions and consciousness of Greeks.

 

 

 

CAICG project: The collective action of 'indignant' citizens in Greece: causes, content, agency, and implications for policy makers

ARISTEIA II – NSRF 2007-2013

Timeline of the project: 2015-2016

Panteion University participated in the program with the collaboration of Associate Prof. Vasiliki Georgiadou, Anastasia Kafe and Lamprini Rori

CAICG aspires to explain developments in the Greek political setting during the sovereign debt crisis which erupted in 2010, focusing on the causes and consequences of protest activity. What brought people with scarcely any prior experience in demonstrations to Syntagma square? How did parties and individual politicians react to the accumulation of discontent?  

 

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