Blame and punishment? The electoral politics of extreme austerity in Greece

Can governments that introduce extreme austerity measures survive elections? Contrary to economic voting expectations, the PASOK government in Greece initially appeared to cope quite well, claiming victory in regional elections in 2010 despite widespread anti-austerity protest. In this paper, we interpret this result with the help of a post-election survey, which also covered future voting intention. The explanatory power of models based on theories of economic voting and blame attribution as well as the electoral impact of the government’s representation of the crisis as an existential threat are assessed. Our analysis challenges the interpretation of the 2010 election as an indication of support for PASOK’s austerity policies and reveals weaknesses in its support base, which help contextualise its downfall in the 2012 Parliamentary elections. The paper also underlines the importance of studying the impact of crises discourses on voting choice, particularly since blame attribution receives little support in this case

Non-traditional security in Greece: terrorism, migration and securitisation theory

This thesis is about the shift in Greek security policy and thinking from a narrow focus on military issues and Greek-Turkish relations to a broader and more sophisticated policy, where 'internal' threats and non-traditional security issues are increasingly dominating the agenda. Drawing on debates in International Relations on the concept of security, this thesis assesses the conceptual and policy changes towards terrorism and immigration in Greece and argues that both issues have become central security concerns.To explore the shift towards security in Greek policies on terrorism and migration this thesis utilises the theory of 'securitisation', as developed by the 'Copenhagen School of Security Studies'. Despite its prominence in the literature on security studies, the specific dynamics of securitisation remain poorly understood. Adopting a constructivist security approach, this thesis aims to analyse the process through which terrorism and migration were upgraded in the Greek security agenda, as well as the reasons and the consequences of that move.The study argues that the securitisation of internal security issues may have varying and wide-ranging effects. On the one hand, the belated securitisation of terrorism in Greece in the late 1990s was arguably the catalyst for the arrest of the 'Revolutionary Organisation 17 November' in 2002. On the other hand, the security logic of Greek migration policy has served as the legitimising factor for the restrictive -at times even xenophobicresponses of the Greek state and has been one of the main obstacles for the development of a more substantive approach to migration in Greece.The overall analysis contributes to the understanding of policy developments in Greece on migration and terrorism and parallels these to developments in the European Union. In addition, by adopting an empirical approach, this thesis provides a practical assessment of the dynamics and value of securitisation theory, identifies some of its shortcomings, and contributes to improving and strengthening the theory

Integrationspolitik in Griechenland

- In Griechenland lebten 2017 etwa 543.000 Drittstaatsangehörige. Dies entspricht etwa 5 Prozent der Gesamtbevölkerung des Landes. Überwiegend stammen sie aus dem benachbarten Albanien. - Im Unterschied zu den starken Einwanderungswellen der frühen 1990er Jahre hat sich Griechenland im Zuge der Flüchtlingsmigration der letzten Jahre vom Zielland zum Transitland gewandelt. - Gesetze zur Legalisierung von Migranten standen um die Jahrtausendwende im Zentrum der Integrationspolitik des Landes. Darauf folgten ab 2006 erste sozioökonomische Maßnahmen. - Einwanderer sind überwiegend in hochprekären Beschäftigungsverhältnissen angestellt. Die Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise hat ihre Lage im Land erschwert. - Flüchtlinge wurden bisher kaum in den Arbeitsmarkt und die Gesellschaft integriert. Die einheimische Bevölkerung steht deren Integration überwiegend skeptisch gegenüber. - Wo nationale Systeme nicht ausreichen, müssen häufig NGOs oder internationale Organisationen eingreifen. Unter der angespannten wirtschaftlichen Lage und anhaltenden Sparmaßnahmen leidet auch die Integrationspolitik des Landes

The three waves of anti-austerity protest in Greece, 2010-2015

The apparent ubiquity of protest in recent years and the rise of Occupy movements across the world fuelled claims about a new style of mobilisation emerging that is markedly different from previous social movements. Analysing a series of original survey data, this article engages with this debate by providing a panoramic account of how the anti-austerity movement evolved in Greece, comparing the drivers of protest in three distinct protest waves. Contrary to expectations, the rise of the Greek version of the Indignados during 2011 did not decisively transform the anti-austerity movement that emerged in 2010, which mainly displayed characteristics typically associated with 'old' social movements. However, elements of the 'new social movements' approach featured more prominently in the third wave of protest, beginning in mid-2012 and culminating in January 2015 with victory for SYRIZA, the party that channelled the anti-austerity movement into the political scene. The model developed to study protest in non-electoral arenas also performs well to explain the success of SYRIZA in the electoral arena, highlighting the reciprocal but understudied relationship between mobilisation and electoral politics

Culture wars? Assessing the impact of affective polarisation on cultural battles

How does division in society along cultural issues influence affective polarisation? This paper argues that affective polarisation expressed as a group identity on the basis of partisanship can enforce inter-group conflicts on cultural and austerity issues. In our study we employ data from a newly collected data in Greece. Our analysis suggests that cultural and austerity issues reinforced divides and inter-group conflicts even today. Our findings have implications for understanding how affective polarisation can be conditional on views towards cultural and economic issues

Fault Detection and Isolation in Industrial Processes Using Deep Learning Approaches

Automated fault detection is an important part of a quality control system. It has the potential to increase the overall quality of monitored products and processes. The fault detection of automotive instrument cluster systems in computer- based manufacturing assembly lines is currently limited to simple boundary checking. The analysis of more complex non-linear signals is performed manually by trained operators, whose knowledge is used to supervise quality checking and manual detection of faults. In this paper, a novel approach for automated fault detection and isolation based on deep machine learning techniques is presented. The approach was tested on data generated by computer-based manufacturing systems equipped with local and remote sensing devices. The results show that the proposed approach models the different spatial / temporal patterns found in the data. The approach is also able to successfully diagnose and locate multiple classes of faults under real-time working conditions. The proposed method is shown to outperform other established fault detection and isolation methods