Greek Ministerial Advisers and Policy Making: a Critical Reflection on Theory and Methods

The present contribution provides an overview and a critical reflection of the research design, theory and methods employed to research the role of Greek ministerial advisers in policy making. We deal with issues both methodological and theoretical arising from the analysis of our findings on previously conducted research. The objective here is twofold: weight the strengths and weaknesses of the current completed research, gain useful insights, comments and feedback from discussion with peers. The material is presented as follows. First, we present the study’s research design. This includes: a) the aims and objectives the research design set forward to achieve, b) the theoretical framework employed, especially the typologies we used, as well as the reasons why the various typologies were chosen, c) our choice of sample and the methods for collecting our data. In the end of this first section, special attention will focus on limitations and problems of the current research providing for a critical reflection session of the research design. In the second section, we quickly provide an overview of our results. We close the section by critically reflecting upon issues arising from the analysis of findings. We conclude by providing an overview of the discussion on both sessions of critical reflection of the study’s research design, spotting the strengths and weaknesses of the current research, while also providing leads for future research.status: publishe

Legislative Turnover Down Under 1946-2017: Trends and (some) Explanations

Parliamentary, legislative or simply turnover refers to membership change in legislatures from one term to the next. It has been described as a ‘kind of seismographer’ that detects shifts in the foundations of politics and policy (Putnam 1976); a ‘democratic thermometer’ (Crowther and Manytone 2007) that measures the competitiveness and quality of a democracy; a ‘policy barometer’ (Gouglas 2017) that can make policy change possible. The topic has attracted attention since the seminal work of Wilfredo Pareto (1916) on elite circulation, yet the first systematic study came from Charles Hyneman (1936) on US state level legislatures in the 1930s. Legislative turnover research witnessed a revival in the 1980s and 1990s thanks to the debate on term limits in the USA. Since 2012 turnover has attracted the attention of the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) mainly due to concerns about extremely volatile parliamentary personnel in developing democracies. Today, legislative turnover remains primarily an American topic despite a fast emerging literature outside of the US context. Internationally comparative research, as well as single country research on its determinants remains very limited. Australia is no exception. The systematic scoping review, which was conducted on studies that were published in the period 1965-2015, revealed that there is no empirical work on the phenomenon in Australia at the federal level (Gouglas, Maddens, Brans 2017). The only data on turnover in the Australian lower chamber is to be found in Matland and Studlar’s (2004) internationally comparative study covering 25 industrial democracies in the period 1974-1994. What we know about legislative turnover in Australia we learn it from a comparative study, published as a conference paper, on Australian state legislatures (Moncrief 1997) and in certain cases from studies that touch upon turnover in single states, like the work by Sharman (2013) on turnover in the Legislative Council (upper chamber) of Tasmania. In the present presentation I attempt to cover this empirical gap by presenting data on legislative turnover in the Australian House of Representatives in the period 1946-2017, as well as on turnover of MPs within Australian political parties. I will then speculate on the political and institutional causes behind variability in turnover rates across legislatures and parties. The current research is supported by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and is part of a broader project the aim of which is to map and explain legislative turnover rates in developed democracies across the world.status: publishe

The Young Precariat in Greece: What Happened to “Generation 700 Euros”?

Despite important problems associated with young age and transition to employment, there are also specific challenges associated with particular generations at particular politico-historical and economic settings. They may not be considered natural because of young age and the life cycle associated with it. The present contribution describes the economic and social situation of the young generation in Greece before and after the crisis, in comparison to older age-groups and where possible to the previous young generation when its members took their first steps into the job market. The “young generation”, in Greece, codified as “generation 700 Euros” before the crisis, may be understood as a broader “actual generation”, the “young precariat”. The “young precariat” comprises of people, born between the late ‘70s and the late ‘90s, who are exposed to a set of generationally defining social and economic historical experiences: a) a prolonged transition to independence, b) “precarity”, c) generational tension and d) the economic crisis. Focusing on precarity and generational tension, we show, using statistical data and secondary analyses that first: the “young precariat” experiences worse socio-economic conditions in comparison to their parent generation when they were at a similar life cycle in 1981. Second, the economic crisis has increased the levels of “precarity”, however, an ongoing pension reform seems to be leveling the generational game to the benefit of the younger generation.status: publishe

Political advisers and circles of trust in Greek ministerial cabinets: cardinals of the conclave, managers and the children of favouritism

The present chapter has a double goal. First, to describe what Greek ministerial advisers do, under what rules and in which institutional and policy contexts. The objective here is to inform the student, researcher, as well as expert of Greek politics, public policy and administration on the adviser phenomenon in Greece. The history, statutory provisions, institutional habitat and policy making roles of Greek ministerial cabinet advisers is presented. Second, and this is the main theoretical and empirical contribution of the chapter in hand, the chapter explores the minister / political adviser relationship in Greece by addressing the issue of trust. Beyond recent theoretical advances in the minister-adviser relationship, very little is known on the issue of trust, which is the real currency in that relationship. Trust buys influence with the minister. For this reason it begs for more scholarly attention. The chapter is driven by a set of questions. How can trust be defined in the ministerial cabinet context and what are its sources? Do minister-principals trust their adviser-agents the same or are there different circles of trust within cabinets; if so, which ones and why? In the end, how much currency does trust have in the policy making process? Is it always a source of influence and when does it backfire?status: publishe

Determinants of Parliamentary Turnover in Western Europe 1945-2015

The renewal and stability of the political elite has attracted the interest of scholars and the public alike since antiquity. Parliamentary turnover, which is a specific type of political elite circulation that refers to the level of membership change in legislatures after general elections, is associated with the rise of modern representative democracy in the 1800s. Its study is important because the rate of political alternation in parliaments is a measure of the volatility of the governing elite (elite seismometer); an index of the competitiveness of representative democracy and especially of the stability of the political order and of the level of descriptive representation (democratic thermometer); and finally a measure of the existence of the necessary conditions for policy change (a policy barometer). Although the topic has attracted the attention of scholars since the start of the 20th century, past research is still characterised by major empirical gaps and interesting puzzles. Such a significant empirical lacuna concerns systematic research outside the US context. The major paradox relates to the contradiction between analytical findings according to which turnover is primarily a matter of electoral swings and the matching effects of electoral systems with the observation according to which the majority of MPs turn over before elections. The dissertation attempts to solve this puzzle by addressing three specific empirical questions, which also present key empirical gaps in the literature. 1. What explains legislative turnover in lower chambers within West European consolidated democracies in the period 1945-2015? 2. Do explanations of the political alternation of women MPs in West European legislatures differ than those of men? And what can we learn about the determinants of legislative turnover through the study of its gender dimension? 3. How much personnel change is there within and across legislative parties across time and why? The questions are answered with the help of an original dataset (Parl-Turn), which comprises 18151 individual level observations on new members of parliament (MPs), 1359 observations on legislative turnover within political parties and 152 observations on turnover at the entire assembly level in the lower or unicameral chambers of Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK over a period of 70 years (1945-2015). The key finding emerging from the results is that membership change in parliaments from election to election is primarily a supply side phenomenon. The structure of political career opportunities, or simply put the attractiveness, availability and accessibility of political jobs in the political marketplace, shapes the supply of contenders and thus affects the rate of political alternation in parliaments. The demand for candidates by parties and for legislators by electorates follows in importance. Electoral systems, although statistically significant are the least important. The finding signifies a departure from results of past internationally comparative studies according to which turnover is primarily a result of fluctuations in voter preferences (mainly electoral volatility) and differences in the electoral system.nrpages: 227status: publishe

Greek Ministerial Advisers: Policy Managers, Not Experts?

This article investigates the policy-making role of Greek ministerial advisers. This is achieved by classifying those actors using typologies developed in empirical studies of political staff in Westminster systems, according to policy roles, nature and dimension of policy advice activities, and the policy cycle. This small N comparative study locates the Greek ministerial adviser in the ministerial cabinet tradition and argues that this agent fits best the role of a coordinator and policy manager, who vertically steers policy and networks with other political staff across a fragmented executive core government.status: publishe

Policy Advisory Systems & Policy Advice Utilisation: a Bird’s Eye View on the Literature

In the present internal report we review the literature on policy advice. In particular we focus on what we know and what we don’t know on policy advisory systems and policy advice utilisation. We do this by employing a traditional narrative review method. In order to add some rigour in the review process we organise the material around key themes and questions that emerge as important in the literature. This is done in three sections. First, we begin with a discussion on the very definition of policy advice. Does policy advice, presently defined as a background concept, adequately delimit our field of enquiry or should we better construct a systematised one? In the second section we proceed with an examination of what the literature says on policy advisory systems. What are policy advisory systems and how may the policy advice process be conceptualised within them? More importantly what do past studies reveal on policy advisory system configuration and why are they structured the way they do? How do such systems change in time and towards what direction? What can be said on the determinants of actors and their influence? Finally, the third section deals with policy advice utilisation. We present literature insights on three crucial issues: a) how may we conceive use of policy advice, b) who are the users of advice and why do they seek advice, c) what determines use of advice?nrpages: 33status: publishe

Crossing the Rubicon. The Cabinetisation of the Minister’s Court in Australia and Canada. Has the Die Been Cast?

In the present paper we argue that the emergence of political advisers in the Westminster (and not only) administrative tradition can be understood as part of a process of ‘cabinetisation’, which started in the 1980s and continues till today. Given the lack of theory on this concept the main aim of the present paper is to develop cabinetisation from a background concept to a systematized one, which can then be used for systematic comparative research. Thus, the main question driving the present paper is: what is cabinetisation? The fundamental challenge is the delimitation of the concept in order to avoid the risk of conceptual stretching. Once the scope of the concept has been settled, cabinetisation is illustrated by using two examples of Westminster tradition systems, Australia and Canada, where the phenomenon has arguably advanced more than in others. An interesting question here is the following. Does the organisation and logic of advisory work around the minister in those countries belong to the ministerial cabinet species? Did Australia and Canada cross the Rubicon, thus passing the point of no return, or do ministerial offices in these systems can still be classified as falling within the Westminster tradition? We suggest that on the basis of what we know from the literature, Australian ministerial offices can be classified as variants of the ministerial cabinet species, while Canadian ones are heading there but did not yet pass the point of no return.status: publishe

Introduction to the New JCPA Comparative Syllabi Section

Nurturing the next generation of comparative policy analysts can not only be achieved through fruitful research discussions, but also relies upon the comparative research and methods we convey to students in our educational programs. This is the introduction to first issue of the special JCPA section on comparative course syllabi.peerreview_statement: The publishing and review policy for this title is described in its Aims & Scope. aims_and_scope_url: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=fcpa20status: publishe