Antecedents of Psychological Empowerment: A Study of Greek Employees in Municipalities

ABSTRACT

Psychological empowerment has received a burgeoning attention among scholars and practitioners in the last decades. However, little is known about its antecedents in the public sector, and even more in municipalities. The present study attempts to fill this gap by examining the relationship of leader-member exchange (LMX), role conflict and role ambiguity with employees’ psychological empowerment. Data were collected from 210 administrative employees of nine Greek municipalities. Results supported our hypotheses that these three factors constitute important antecedents of such employees’ psychological empowerment. Theoretical and practical implications were also discussed.     

In Search of Strategies to Face the Economic Crisis: Evidence from Greek Farms

This study examines the strategies – defensive or aggressive, individual or collective – undertaken by sheep farms in a Greek rural area in order to face the repercussions of the economic crisis and their effects on the productivity and economic performance of these farms. The article presents the results of a farm management survey conducted in 2010 and repeated in 2014 in northern Evros, Greece. The mix of strategies – mainly passive – adopted by farmers shows their confusion in the face of crisis conditions, which has resulted in reduced productivity, more use of family labour and a rise in collective actions.     

A Retrospective Demographic and Clinicopathologic Review of Deaths Resulting from Minefield Explosions During Migrants’ Attempts to Enter Greece from Turkey Between 1997 and 2008

Until 2008, the easternmost land borders of the European Union (Greek‐Turkish land zone) were planted with minefields spanning 11 km. Therefore, numerous fatalities occurred in peacetime as migrants attempted to avoid Greek border checks. Numerous fatal incidents (51) were detected inside the Greek minefields between 1997 and 2008. Determination of age, sex, time of death, and nationality were evaluated in every case. The injuries’ anatomical dispersion, their severity, and the mechanism of death were examined in relation to the victims’ position at the moment of the explosion. Data research indicated that all victims were male, aged 18–30 in their majority, crossing border minefields mainly during the night. Their distance and position in relation to the point of detonation was a key factor in the trauma localization and severity. This review highlights the devastating consequences of the residual mines during peacetime, a situation that continues to be a persistent international problem.     

论古希腊的中庸精神

在古希腊,以“不要过度”为基本特征的中庸精神在日常生活以及哲学和文学中有着广泛的体现。这一精神至亚里士多德时发展成为具有伦理学、政治学和方法论意义的系统的“中道”思想。古希腊的中庸精神反映了人类早期求“中”、求“和”的共同思维倾向。     

Russia’s energy relations in Southeastern Europe: an analysis of motives in Bulgaria and Greece

Although officially Russian state-owned energy companies operate as independent entities, their actions often lead to suspicion that they are acting as a tool of Russian state foreign policy. Countries on the southeastern borders of Europe – Bulgaria and Greece – are prime examples of where this might be the case, since they not only have a central position in Russia’s plans to penetrate European markets through new transport infrastructure but are also part of competing plans for routing non-Russian gas to Western markets. The main focus of the present research is on the natural gas and oil sectors, as these are the traditional foundation of Russian energy exports to Europe. The aim of this paper is thus to provide an objective, evidence-based analysis of Russian activities in the natural gas and oil sectors of Greece and Bulgaria in order to establish whether its actions have been implicitly or explicitly politicized and have served to strengthen Russian influence in the region.     

International Norm Diffusion and Organised Crime Policy: The Case of Greece

The premise of this paper is that a section of the Greek policy-making elite responsible for formulating policy against organised crime has taken advantage of an internationally-developed programme of action on this issue to strengthen perceptions of the Greek state's legitimacy amongst both domestic and foreign audiences. Although positive reaction to foreign pressure for policy change has tended to be made at the risk of losing further legitimacy in the eyes of domestic public opinion, in this case the issue of organised crime has presented an opportunity to the policy-making elite to develop policy that also aims to bolster the domestic legitimacy of the state by dealing with criminality and presenting the state as a clean and neutral body acting for the common public good.     

The ‘good’, the ‘bad’ and the ‘Charlie’: the business of cocaine smuggling in Greece

This article examines the social organisation of cocaine smuggling in Greece. Emphasis is placed on the involvement of professionals from the shipping industry and actors from the ‘upper society echelons’ who play a pivotal role in the transportation and importation of cocaine to Western Europe and Greece. After considering empirical evidence from a variety of sources, our findings indicate that the cocaine market in Greece is ‘organised’ by a system of collaborative relationships between state, business and civil society actors. It is suggested that to better understand the nature of this illegal market, further research is required to take a closer look into the economic, socio-cultural and political incentives of these actors.     

Whatever Happened to Greece?

The sovereign debt crisis in Greece and other periphery countries is a yardstick for the viability of the European project: if Greece defaults and exits the Euro‐zone, then the entire European architecture will be questioned. This article examines the origins of the Greek debt crisis and argues that the key sources of the debt are the economic and political factions that have dominated Greek politics since the fall of the Colonels in summer 1974 amidst the Cyprus calamity. These factions (political parties, comprador economic interests etc.), whose policy actions and preferences are amalgamated with the interests of Euro‐Atlantic elites, are now being severely undermined, both politically and economically, as the prosperity of the Greek middle classes is eroded following two years of harsh austerity measures imposed on the Greek ruling factions by those Euro‐Atlantic elites. Furthermore, this article outlines ways out of the Greek debt crisis, putting into test some reasonable policy proposals that are being widely discussed in Greece and abroad.     

Deterrence and Protection in the EU’s Migration Policy

EU migration and asylum policy is facing tough challenges at the southern borders of the Union as migration and asylum pressures rise, fuelled by political instability and poverty in several regions of Asia and Africa. Current European border control practices create three spaces of control: externalised borders, through readmission and return agreements which enrol third countries in border control; the EU borders themselves through the work of Frontex and the development of a whole arsenal of technology tools for controlling mobility to and from the EU; and the Schengen area, whose regulations tend to reinforce deterrence at the borders through the Smart Border System. As a result, the EU’s balancing act between irregular migration control and protection of refugees and human life clearly tips towards the former, even if it pays lip service to the latter. More options for mobility across the Mediterranean and more cooperation for growth are essential ingredients of a sustainable migration management policy on the EU’s southern borders. In addition asylum management could benefit from EU level humanitarian visas issued at countries of origin.     

The first initiatives

The Greek election of May 2012 failed to produce a government, resulting in repeat elections six weeks later. This shock outcome was a symptom of a broader delegitimation of the national political system. Over the past decade Eurobarometer data show a much more extensive loss of confidence in political institutions in Greece than in the European Union as a whole. In a first phase, rising political discontent was managed within the traditional political framework through alternation in power between the two major parties. In contrast, the second phase, following the outbreak of the Greek sovereign debt crisis, led to the dramatic fragmentation of the party system and changed the mode of government formation. This process is not reversible and entails serious democratic dangers.