ABSTRACT
The Greek example is a case of differentiation based upon strong external dependence and vulnerability. The long-term differentiation features, well-embedded before the hard times began, have been exacerbated since then through the EU-led development of specific institutional and regulatory governance structures. In this chapter, we describe the main problematical forms of differentiation observed in Greece in the framework of the 2010 Eurozone crisis and the post-COVID-19 economic crisis, and analyse their (fragmentation-driven) effects on public responsibility, accountability, and democracy.
Given the intensity of post-2010 shocks that affected the country, extreme legal forms of government facilitating tight European surveillance have been initiated. These forms of government – well-embedded in the EU system of multi-tier economic and fiscal coordination – are based upon a specific normative nomenclature of policy-making. We present and discuss empirical findings concerning the EU-driven domestic governance regime: hyper-centralised state with drastically narrowed core powers on public finance and public administration, weakening or abolition of state control mechanisms (semi-failed state), arbitrary multiplication of “independent” (non-majoritarian) regulatory and supervisory bodies (Authorities, Funds, etc.) integrated in a multi-level surveillance logic as a unified field of action.
In this framework, we assess to what extent the institutional, normative, and policy arrangements of surveillance are associated with dominance, thus engendering various forms of new dependencies and biased decisions. We also evaluate the effects of fiscal consolidation on state capacity for tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, and explore why the imposition of strict economic lockdown could be the sign of new differentiating effects and dominance policy solutions. First, upon the basis of the empirical findings, we present the dominant cultural and discursive rationalities that underpin the post-2010 economic governance regime, including the current proposal for the next-generation EU recovery plan. Then, we ask whether the domestic political system’s dependence from extra-territorial policies aimed at creating a specific economic and social policy acquis exacerbates even further after the COVID pandemic, the social fragmentation, and the economic decline.
