What Do Greek Political Elites Think about Europe and the Crisis? Preliminary Results of Recent Survey Research
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Speaker
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Dr Dimitri Sotiropoulos
Associate Professor, University of Athens
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Chair
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Professor Kevin Featherstone
Hellenic Observatory Director; Eleftherios Venizelos Professor of Contemporary Greek Studies & Professor of European Politics;
LSEE-Research on South Eastern Europe Co-Chair
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Date
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Tuesday, 20 January 2015
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Venue
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Cañada Blanch Room, COW 1.11, 1st floor, Cowdray House
European Institute, LSE
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Time
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18:00-19:30
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Twitter
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#LSESotiropoulos
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Abstract
As the politics of European integration become more politicized, it is useful to explore the views of national elites and interpret them along national and political party lines. Parliamentary elites play the role of decision-makers, a role which is enhanced when difficult policy choices have to be made at times of economic crisis; in the case of EU Member-States such elites also play the role of mediators between EU institutions and citizens, a role which is particularly sensitive and vulnerable when economic adjustment programmes are agreed between the EU and Member-States. The purpose of this research to illuminate these roles by answering the following questions:1) How has the Eurozone crisis affected the attitudes of Greek political elites towards the EU? 2) How Greek political elites evaluate the role played by EU institutions in the management of the crisis? 3) How do they perceive the future of European integration? And 4) Which factors explain the configuration of political elites’ attitudes towards the EU? This research is part of a larger comparative study, “European National Elites and the Crisis” (ENEC) and partially replicates a similar study of Greek political elites which took place in 2007 under the INTUNE comparative political elites research. The research is based on personal interviews, conducted n Athens in 2014, on the basis of a structured questionnaire distributed to a sample of Members of Greek Parliament.
Photos
Photography supplied courtesy of Antonios Fiala - A.Fiala@lse.ac.uk