The path of modernization: PASOK and European integration
In 1974, the year in which PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) was founded, Greece faced one of those ‘critical situations’, described by Emile Durkheim, during which exceptional events strengthen collective identities and consolidate the feeling of belonging to a community. The fall of the dictatorship, the humiliation of Greece in Cyprus, and the referendum which brought about the end of the monarchy were the major events in 1974. These events mobilized large segments of the population, signicantly increased interest in politics, raised the credibility of political parties, and legitimized expectations of innovative political reforms. Everything appeared possible in 1974. Throughout the 1970s and culminating in 1981, the year of the great electoral triumph of the Greek socialists (48.07 per cent in contrast to 25.33 per cent in 1977 and only 13.58 per cent in 1974), PASOK had been imposed as a force which—more than any other party of the Left or the Right—represented the widespread conviction that extraordinary political engineering was on the agenda. In the 1970s and the early 1980s, PASOK proved to be extremely successful in combining anti-capitalist discourse with the historically articulated symbols of the political Centre. Andreas Papandreou, the leader and founder of PASOK, personied this combination in an exemplary fashion, unifying his centrist origin with Marxist analysis. Indeed, the strategic position occupied by the Greek socialists in the system of party competition was unique and remarkable. In the rst period (1974–1981), PASOK succeeded in functioning as the main vehicle of political protest within the party system, touching at times, in its rhetoric, the limits of an anti-systemic party. It succeeded at the same time in gradually dominating the electoral space of the historic Centre and establishing itself, particularly after the elections of 1977, as a party à vocation majoritaire. During this period, PASOK was—simultaneously!—a continuation of the historical Centre and a force more innovative and dynamic than the communist Left. The strategy of PASOK in the period 1974–1985 could be compared to that of François Mitterrand in the period 1973–1984. Both strategies should be taught in the textbooks of political science as two different paradigms which
Dis-Embeddedness and De-Classification: Modernization Politics and the Greek Teacher Unions in the 1990s
During the 90s, PASOK, in common with the other European social democratic parties, has advocated Third Way revisionism and has placed the ‘modernization’ of the Greek society high on its political agenda. By focusing on a series of conflictual incidents between the teacher unions and the Greek government, this paper exemplifies the repercussions of this process on teachers-state relations. Building upon the dialectics of path shaping and path dependency, we suggest that the particular development of the modernization project and the reactions it has triggered are to be attributed to the historically determined, nationally specific, contingently activated institutional legacies and structures that, on the one hand, stand in the way of the incorporation of Greece to the EMU/ESM and, on the other, are employed by the unions to defend industrial and social citizenship.
Arab Uprisings and the Outstanding Return to Democracy: Tunisia as a Model
In the wake of the Middle Eastern crises, the Tunisian case in focus has been doted as a unique phenomenon being that it was the Genesis of the revolution that ultimately spread across the Middle East like wild fire, but has eventually heralded a new dawn as democracy has incidentally returned to the Empire. This literature therefore looks closely at the extent to which the ‘DignityRevolution’ has been instrumental in the Middle East uprisings, which have brought an end to dynastic autocracies. The literature zeros in on the Tunisian uprising which has attracted global concerns, sympathy and has sparked interests in the international arena. The literature finds that the people hold colossal prospect in the uprising and its resultant effect, as it paved the way for the revolutionist to generate, gather and disseminate information on the condition of the entire region to the international community. The people in this context were of utmost importance and played a very crucial role in the creation of awareness, mobilization of protesters and utmost determining the direction of the uprising and also ensuring a speedy return to democratic rule. The paper submits that the role of the people in ensuring that the ruins of the uprising is not left littering around and democracy restored is highly commendable and should be a model for all other Arab countries involved in the revolution.