The institutional deficit
Why the citizens of Greece do not have confidence in the democratic institutions
This op-ed for Kathimerini was published (in Greek) last Sunday. The newspaper selected it for its international edition. It was translated in English by the editors of Kathimerini. The original Greek text can be found here.
An important factor in the success of the January 26 mass rallies around Greece demanding justice over the deadly train collision in Tempe in 2023 is that citizens do not trust institutions. Not only citizens who do not support the current government, but many more.
According to an annual survey by polling company Public Issue, Greeks trust only the Fire Department and the Armed Forces. As positive as this is, it is still a paradox, because the main institutions in a liberal democracy are the parliament, the government and the judiciary. But eight out of 10 citizens do not trust the legislative and executive branches, and seven out of 10 do not trust the judiciary either. The only institution that is in a worse position is the political parties, that is, the opposition. Citizens do not even trust the president of the republic.
I have been writing about these issues for many years in scientific texts and articles. For some time now, I have pointed out that Greece’s problem was and is institutional. Even the economic crisis was a crisis of institutional deficit. The budget deficits were merely the symptoms. Let us not make the mistake of considering that alleviating the symptoms has a therapeutic character. Institutional atrophy remains in place and the people understand it, have to deal with it in their daily lives, and consider it so much a given that they adjust their behavior accordingly.
Thus, suspicion toward institutions is not a recent development, it is not the result of the current situation. If you look at the relevant indicators over time, you will see that the downward trend was almost constant, but in recent years, especially since 2010, we have observed the collapse, mainly of democratic institutions. If we study all the research, but especially the real choices of citizens in elections and in everyday life, we will find that there is a very clear trend of delegitimization of liberal democracy. Citizens do not trust its basic institutions and are ready to turn to anti-systemic parties, mainly of the far-right.
This phenomenon is not unique to Greece, it is observed everywhere. In Europe, liberal democracy is systematically losing battles, while in the US its declared enemies now control the levers of power.
In Greece, the final blow seems to have been dealt by the Tempe train crash or, rather, the way it was handled by the political institutions that Greeks do not trust (the government and the Parliament). In similar cases, the correct strategy for those institutions can only be one: absolute transparency, empathy, alertness, efficiency. It is obvious that this strategy was not followed; in fact Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis himself admitted it.
Visit the Kathimerini website to read the rest of the editorial.