Conversations on Europe. Different Pathways, Common Destination? Public Policy and Institutional Changes in Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain during and after the Economic Crisis

While Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain slid into economic crisis in the 2010 for different reasons and at different time points and have already started overcoming the crises in a varied manner, there was visible policy convergence among the four countries. There were similar policy responses regarding fiscal, macroeconomic, incomes, welfare and labor relations’ issues. Moreover, despite the fact that the four countries had followed different paths to government reform and administrative modernization before the crisis, they eventually converged towards similar policy responses regarding government organization and public administration. The observed convergence may be interpreted through external constraints imposed by Europe and international organizations and creditors and through the adoption of public management ideas, which prevailed in international and domestic policy networks. Policy shifts were not evenly implemented across the four countries for reasons related to historical legacies of state-society relations and variations in political party systems. Such legacies may also help explain why Greece remained a reform laggard compared to the rest of South European countries.

Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos is visiting scholar at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University, and Onassis Visiting Professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Tufts University) in 2018-19. He is on leave from his post as professor of political science at the University of Athens. In 2003 he was senior research fellow at the Hellenic Observatory of the London School of Economics; in 2009-10 visiting fellow in South East European studies at St. Antony’s College, Oxford; and in the autumn of 2016 visiting fellow at Science Po, Paris. He serves on the editorial boards of "South European Society and Politics," "Journal of Mediterranean Politics," "South East European and Black Sea Studies," "European Political Science Review," and the "Greek Review of Political Science." Sotiropoulos studied law and sociology at the Law School of the University of Athens (LLB), the London School of Economics (MSc), and Yale University (Ph.D., awarded with distinction, 1991). Recent books in English include "Αusterity and the Third Sector in Greece: Civil Society at the European Frontline," (with J. Clarke and A. Huliaras, 2015) and "Socioeconomic Fragmentation and Exclusion under the Crisis" (co-edited with D. Katsikas and M. Zafeiropoulou, 2018).