Athens: Citizenship and Governance: Selection

Athens: Citizenship and Governance: Selection and Representation: Citizens in Public Office

Greece is considered to be one of the first democracies of the civilized world. The works of philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle came to recognize the need of the people to have access to freely express their will concerning their political representatives at the head of the country. In this sense, both Plato and Aristotle saw in the presence of the people the sign of the rule of the people even though it was an indirect expression of their will. Although Plato despised the power of the people as a sign of weakness for the political system, given the fact that he was the advocate of the rule of the elites, he did agreed on the fact that the rule of the demos is the most suited for the free and equal representation of their will (Braunstein and Pepin, 1998). Nowadays however, there is a limited number of countries which still do not consider the role of the demos as being essential for the legitimization of its leaders. Dictatorial regimes are such cases. In most situations however, the people stand at the basis of the democratic process. From this point-of-view therefore, the electoral system, the representation scheme, at any level of the society, is essential and plays a crucial role in determining the process of the democratic rule.

From a general point-of-view, it can be said that Greece is a democratic country, proof being its membership of the European Union. Nonetheless, at the level of the political system, the electoral strategy, an essential tool of the democratic process, can in many situations limit the proper representation of the will of the people. In this sense, the Greek election process is based on the list system; on the one hand, there are the closed lists which allow voters to manifest their choice of party, but not of their preference in terms of individual political leader (Greek electoral systems, n.d.). On the other hand, there is yet another system of voting, the open lists, which allow voters to express their views in terms of the political party, and, at the same time to express their options in regard to a possible personality of that party (Dunleavy and O'Leary, 1987). This allows voters to have an increased sense of democratic rule, but still fosters a limited expression of the democratic process.

Public representation and administration represents an important issue in the Hellenic Republic due to the various factors the Ministry of Interior and Decentralization must take into account. One of these issues concerns the practical nature of the country itself. More precisely, Greece is made up of numerous islands, most of them uninhabited. In this sense, people who actually do live in these areas must travel long distances in order to reach a public administration office (Fotinopoulou, n.d.). Additionally, there is a rather suspicious public view of the administrative office in Greece due to the fact that "they were confronted with the prejudice of the "typical civil servant" lazy, unfriendly, uncooperative" (Fotinopoulou, n.d.). From this point-of-view, the administrative Ministry had to increase the actions taken against such public perceptions and at the same time to make the population aware of their importance for the reform of the public domain.

Another issue confronting the public administration in Greece is the lack of motivation from the public servants. They are in most cases somewhat reluctant to help citizens, as well as to improve the quality of their work. In this sense, the population is also disregarding their functions and prefer, out of commodity but also to avoid direct contact with public servants, the telephone application technique implemented especially for the capital and other remote areas of the country. In this way, people rely nowadays on the practice of applying for basic documents via the telephone line (E-Government Observatory, 2005). Nonetheless, this does not mean a confrontational attitude in regard to the actual situation concerning the public administration. This is why it is important to consider the main ideas about public administration in Greece and to have in mind the democratic deficit and lack of representativeness it faces.

First and foremost it must be pointed out the fact that the current structure of the Greek administration is the result of the administrative reform which took place under the influence of the French Republic (Chlepas, 1994). This was largely due to the fact that the French administration was somewhat similar to the Greek one because of its centralized structure. The different regions of Greece were similarly constructed as the French ones and the management of these administrative territories was done accordingly. From this point-of-view, the Greek administrative body did not feel the need for an improvement of the situation.

At the same time however, there was an increased need in the reorganization of the country due to the fact that it would soon join the EU in 1981. In this sense, a second layer of organization was built, the prefectures (Chlepas, 1994). This is considered to be one of the first steps towards achieving a higher degree of autonomy and local decentralization. The need for such a process was rather big, considering the fact that the regions of Greece are rather far apart and the administrative territory of the capital for instance takes into account also some remote additional territories which do not have an easy access to the administrative facilities available to for the ones in the capital.

If in the beginning of the modern history of Greece, it was a centralized state, in the last decades of the century it decided to focus more on the possibility of offering people and the administration the chance to consider more elaborate yet loose conduct of local politics. In this sense, the reform of the late 80s represented an improvement in terms of local organization of the land, from small communities and municipalities to larger, more prosperous municipalities. Moreover, it was clearly pointed out the fact that local representatives would be elected officials, and not politically appointed individuals (Lalenis and Liogkas, 2002). However, another aspect must be taken into consideration at this point. The electoral system in Greece, as mentioned above, is based on closed or opened lists; therefore, there is no nominal voting system, an element which does not allow voters to choose their actual representative, but rather a political choice. From one point-of-view, it is a benefic issue because it gives a political substance to the administrative process. On the other hand however, it represents a situation in which the public's choice is not entirely represented by the results of the vote. In this sense, while there is a particular candidate who has gathered the majority in his region, but is not in the top of his party's list, he has limited chance in succeeding in his quest for office.

Yet another issue to be taken into account is the fact that the decentralization at such a level does not necessarily imply the democratization of the public service. More precisely, the local organizations and the staff which makes the structural framework of the administration are still dependent on the financial backing from the central office. This has led to an increase number of strikes and protests which come to point out the lack of satisfaction from both the public and the civil servants (European Federation of Public Service Unions, 2005). This in turn determines a negative attitude of the administrative staff and a poor relationship with the public.