The European Parliament elections in Greece will take place against a backdrop of increasing disillusionment with politics among Greek citizens

The Greek party system experienced substantial change during the Eurozone crisis, with Pasok, the country’s main centre-left party, suffering a particularly damaging loss of support. Ahead of the European elections in Greece, Eri Bertsou previews the vote and assesses what the elections might mean for the Greek political landscape. She writes that with a fragmented party system and increasing disillusionment with politics among Greek citizens, it is extremely difficult to predict what the final results might be

With Greek MPs set to vote on the country’s new president, the stakes couldn’t be higher for Greece and the Eurozone

The Greek parliament is holding a series of votes on electing the country’s next President. Although the position of President is largely ceremonial, the issue has created political uncertainty due to the present government lacking the required support to elect their designated candidate. Should they fail to appoint a new President by 29 December, the Greek constitution states that new parliamentary elections must be held, which could potentially be won by the left-wing opposition party Syriza. Eri Bertsou writes that with the government’s success far from assured, the vote could have far-reaching consequences for Greece and the Eurozone

Public demand for technocratic expertise rises in times of crisis: what does this mean for democracy?

Independent experts have played a prominent role in the responses of European governments to the Covid-19 outbreak. But while there appears to have been broad public support for the involvement of experts in policymaking during the crisis, are there potential implications for democracy? Drawing on a new book, Eri Bertsou presents five lessons learned from research on technocratic politics and the role of independent experts in democratic systems

Public demand for technocratic expertise rises in times of crisis. what does this mean for democracy?

Independent experts have played a prominent role in the responses of European governments to the Covid-19 outbreak. But while there appears to have been broad public support for the involvement of experts in policymaking during the crisis, are there potential implications for democracy? Drawing on a new book, Eri Bertsou presents five lessons learned from research on technocratic politics and the role of independent experts in democratic systems

Attitudes in established democracies show there is still a place for independent experts in politics

While recent political developments may paint a bleak picture of the role of unelected experts in democratic politics, Eri Bertsou and Giulia Pastorella argue that positive attitudes toward ‘technocrats’ remain prevalent in many established democracies. They explain that what drives citizen preferences for political decision-making by independent experts is distrust of representative political institutions and a belief in the merits of democracy as a system. This highlights the appeal of ‘non-political politics’, which has enjoyed a surge in the past decade

Five minutes with the European Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly: “Citizens need to be honest and empower themselves to reach out to institutions”

The principle of European citizenship was introduced by the Maastricht Treaty and came into force in 1993. To mark the 20th anniversary of European citizenship, 2013 was officially designated the ‘European Year of Citizens’, with the aim of raising awareness about the rights of citizens living across the EU. EUROPP’s Assistant Editor Eri Bertsou spoke to the European Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, about the importance of European citizenship, and the wider role of civil society organisations in EU politics

Men are bigger Scrooges than women in the UK, but most countries in Europe are looking forward to Christmas

To mark Christmas Eve, the EUROPP editorial team decided to bring you an alternative piece of research. Based on a recent YouGov poll on attitudes toward Christmas, EUROPP editors Eri Bertsou and Stuart Brown assess which demographic groups most look forward to the holiday. Despite the wide variation in attitudes among UK citizens, they note that people across Europe are still largely positive about Christmas, with only those in France indicating that they don’t look forward to the festivities

Greek parliamentary elections: a final look at the parties and the polling

On 25 January Greece will hold parliamentary elections. Ahead of the vote, Eri Bertsou and Stuart Brown take a final look at the election, providing an overview of the Greek party system, the latest polling, and some of the key contextual factors such as the impact of the financial crisis on the Greek economy and the attitudes of citizens toward the European Union

Citizen attitudes of political distrust: examining distrust through technical, ethical and interest-based evaluations

Citizen orientations towards their political leaders, institutions and political systems sits at the heart of political science and political behaviour, yet despite the potential challenges distrusting citizenries pose for the operation and stability of democratic systems, there has been no consensus on what political distrust really is, what it means for the citizens that express it, what its implications are for political systems and how to best capture it across established democracies. The dissonance between empirical observations of citizen distrusting attitudes and the analytical concepts used to study political orientations, which have mainly focused on trust, make this the right time to ask “What is political distrust?” and to investigate how this attitude area can help social scientists better understand current phenomena of political behaviour across democratic systems. This thesis postulates that we cannot conclusively interpret the significance of plummeting trust indicators nor apprehend their consequences for democratic politics without a clear understanding of citizens’ political distrust, defined in its own right and separated from competing notions, such as cynicism or the lack of trust. The thesis follows a mixed methodological approach to the study of political distrust from the perspective of citizens. It develops a conceptual model for distrusting political attitudes based on theoretical work and novel empirical evidence from three European democracies – Italy, the UK and Greece. Our model conceptualises political distrust as a dynamic, relational and evaluative attitude that follows technical, ethical and interest-based assessments to judge the untrustworthiness of political agents. Further, the thesis puts this conceptual model to the test, creating a novel survey indicator and providing new quantitative evidence regarding the structure and operation of political distrust. It finds support for our conceptualisation of distrusting attitudes as retrospective and prospective evaluative judgments and highlights the prominence of perceptions of unethical political conduct in shaping political distrust. Using a multiple-item indicator tapping into evaluations of national parliament and a citizen’s preferred political party we explore the dimensionality and hierarchy of each evaluation and unravel a double operation of distrusting attitudes, both as specific assessments of political agents along these three dimensions and as a cognitive evaluative shortcut acting in a cyclical reinforcing manner. We also investigate how the newly identified aspects of political distrust relate to citizens’ behavioural intentions for participating in politics and find differences in the motivating and demotivating influence of distrusting attitudes targeted at different parts of the political system

Experts react: Greek referendum

The final result of the Greek referendum saw 61.3 per cent of voters reject the proposal, with 38.7 per cent voting in favour. We asked some of EUROPP’s contributors for their reactions to the result and what it could mean for Greece’s future in the Eurozone. Kyriakos Moumoutzis: “To ‘live life on their own terms’ is to live life outside the Eurozone” Jonathan White: “The wider anti-austerity movement is likely to continue to make itself heard” Lorenzo Codogno: “In the long term, this whole saga may turn out to be positive as it may trigger a much-needed clarification on Eurozone governance and the future of the Union” Nikitas Konstantinidis: “Greece is fast degenerating into a regime of illiberal Chavism and there is not much Europeans can do to stem this tide” Eri Bertsou: “The big question is what Tsipras will choose to do next