Socioeconomic fragmentation and exclusion in greece under the crisis

EDITED BY DIMITRIS KATSIKAS, DIMITRI A SOTIROPOULOS AND MARIA ZAFIROPOULOU new perspectives on south-east europe SOCIOECONOMIC FRAGMENTATION AND EXCLUSION IN GREECE UNDER THE CRISIS New Perspectives on South-East Europe Series Editors Kevin Featherstone London School of Economics European Institute London, UK Spyros Economides London School of Economics European Institute London, UK Vassilis Monastiriotis London School of Economics European Institute London, UK South-East Europe presents a compelling agenda: a region that has challenged European identities, values and interests like no other at formative periods of modern history, and is now undergoing a set a complex transitions It is a region made up of new and old European Union member states, as well as aspiring ones; early ‘democratising’ states and new post-­ communist regimes; states undergoing liberalising economic reforms, partially inspired by external forces, whilst coping with their own embedded nationalisms; and states obliged to respond to new and recurring issues of security, identity, well-being, social integration, faith and secularisation This series examines issues of inheritance and adaptation The disciplinary reach incorporates politics and international relations, modern history, economics and political economy and sociology It links the study of South East-Europe across a number of social sciences to European issues of democratisation and economic reform in the post-transition age It addresses ideas as well as institutions; policies as well as processes It will include studies of the domestic and foreign policies of single states, relations between states and peoples in the region, and between the region and beyond The EU is an obvious reference point for current research on South-East Europe, but this series also highlights the importance of South-East Europe in its eastern context; the Caucuses; the Black Sea and the Middle East More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14733 Dimitris Katsikas  •  Dimitri A Sotiropoulos Maria Zafiropoulou Editors Socioeconomic Fragmentation and Exclusion in Greece under the Crisis Editors Dimitris Katsikas National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Athens, Greece Dimitri A Sotiropoulos National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Athens, Greece Maria Zafiropoulou Hellenic Open University Patras, Greece New Perspectives on South-East Europe ISBN 978-3-319-68797-1    ISBN 978-3-319-68798-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68798-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017961002 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Cover illustration: timsa / GettyImages Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Preface This book is largely based on the analytical ideas, data and findings produced in the context of the research programme Fragmentation and Exclusion: Understanding and Overcoming the Multiple Impacts of the Crisis—‘Fragmex’ (http://www.fragmex.eu/) The programme was funded by the Greek General Secretariat of Research and Technology and the German Ministry of Education during 2013–2015 The Greek part of the programme was implemented by the Crisis Observatory of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) and the Hellenic Open University (HOU) We would like to thank the management and the administrative officers of ELIAMEP as well as the team of HOU and its coordinator, associate professor Achilleas Kameas; their support during the course of the project was indispensable The basic idea that inspired the project was that economic crises produce both a deterioration of living conditions, which lead parts of the population to socio-economic exclusion, and a cognitive or discursive fragmentation, which can also produce new kinds of exclusion The aim of the project was to test this idea for the case of Greece and uncover empirical evidence for these parallel processes Greece constituted an ideal case study because of the depth and duration of the crisis it experienced but also because of its already deeply fragmented political economy and society This analytical framework called for a combination of different theoretical and methodological approaches, which we feel contributed to a richer set of findings and interpretations During the transition from the research programme to the book, the material was re-organized, expanded and updated, while other researchers v vi   PREFACE who had not participated in the programme were invited to join Professor Tsakloglou, one of Greece’s foremost experts in the economic analysis of phenomena of poverty, social exclusion and inequality, and his long-time research collaborator, Eirini Andriopoulou, who is an established researcher on these issues and who works at the Council of Economic Advisors of the Greek Ministry of Finance, agreed to contribute a chapter on poverty and inequality Alejandro Pérez, PhD fellow, also joined the team and contributed greatly in the analysis of civil society organizations’ discourse on poverty and social exclusion We would like to thank them for accepting our invitation to participate in this book We would also like to thank the rest of the authors, who were in this endeavor from the beginning, and Pery Bazoti for her excellent research assistance and her help in getting the final manuscript together Hopefully, the end result is a useful contribution to the study of the socio-economic crisis in Greece but also more broadly to the study of processes of fragmentation and exclusion in modern societies during crisis as well as in times of prosperity Athens, Greece Dimitris Katsikas Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos  Patras, Greece Maria Zafiropoulou Contents 1 Introduction   1 Dimitris Katsikas Part I Socio-Economic Developments and Social Policy During the Crisis  21 2 Inequality and Poverty in Greece: Changes in Times of Crisis  23 Eirini Andriopoulou, Alexandros Karakitsios, and Panos Tsakloglou 3 Employment and Unemployment in Greece Before and After the Outbreak of the Crisis  55 Kyriakos Filinis, Alexandros Karakitsios, and Dimitris Katsikas 4 Too Little, Too Late: The Mismatch Between Social Policy and Social Crisis  89 Dimitri A Sotiropoulos vii viii   CONTENTS Part II Discourses and Perceptions on Poverty and Social Exclusion 109 New Words, Old Patterns: Political Discourse and Documents on Poverty and Social Exclusion in Greece 111 Dimitris Katsikas and Anastasia Papakonstantinou 6 (Mis)understanding the Social Effects of the Crisis: Elite Perceptions of Poverty and Social Exclusion in Greece 141 Dimitri A Sotiropoulos and Anastasia Papakonstantinou 7 Civil Society Discourses on Poverty and Social Exclusion During the Greek Crisis 163 Maria Zafiropoulou, Aspasia Theodosiou, and Alejandro Pérez Part III  Civil Society’s Reaction to the Crisis 189 8 Understanding Civil Society’s Positioning and Strategies during the Crisis 191 Maria Zafiropoulou 9 A Fragmented but Strengthened Civil Society? 219 Dimitri A Sotiropoulos 10 Conclusions: Multiple Aspects of Fragmentation and a Double Mismatch 237 Dimitri A Sotiropoulos Index 253 List of Contributors Eirini  Andriopoulou  Scientific Advisor–Economist, Council of Economic Advisors and Athens University of Economics and Business Kyriakos Filinis  Research Associate, ELIAMEP Alexandros  Karakitsios Council of Economic Advisors and Athens University of Economics and Business Dimiris Katsikas  Lecturer, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and Head, Crisis Observatory, ELIAMEP Anastasia Papakonstantinou  PhD Candidate, University of Peloponnese Alejandro  Pérez PhD Fellow, Institut RSCS, Catholic University of Louvain Dimitri  A.  Sotiropoulos  Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Research Associate, Hellenic Observatory, European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science and Senior Research Fellow, ELIAMEP Αspasia Theodosiou  (MA, PhD), Social Anthropologist, Technological Educational Institute of Epirus and HOU ix ... based on the analytical ideas, data and findings produced in the context of the research programme Fragmentation and Exclusion: Understanding and Overcoming the Multiple Impacts of the Crisis ‘Fragmex’... from the EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) 2010 (incomes of 2009),17 and they presented poverty rates by using a floating and a fixed poverty line According to their findings,... poverty and social exclusion Accordingly, linking the two areas provides for a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the social consequences of the crisis Income or economic inequality