Tuesday, April 5th, 2016 Political vs. Economic Crisis

Description

Most of the analyses see the current political crisis as a result of the prolonged economic crisis which has resulted in a complete rearrangement of the party system. However, my argument is that the political crisis, either in a form of a crisis of representation and/or in the form of the government centered relation between state and society, preceded the economic one. In fact, this is the reason that the policies which prevailed as a response to the economic crisis were so unpopular and in effect further fueled the political crisis. This is not the case only in Greece, where this seminar will focus, but also in many other European countries.

Michalis Spourdalakis, has been teaching political sociology as Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, at the University of Athens, since 1991. Since April 2014 he is also the Dean of the School of Economics and Politics. He is director at the Laboratory of Political Communication and Media Information at the University of Athens, Greece. Before assuming his current position at the University of Athens, he was Assistant Professor at Bishop’s University, Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada; a Post-Doctoral Fellow of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC); and a Researcher at the National Center of Social Research, in Athens. He is currently director of the Canadian Studies Center at the University of Athens.