The contemporary decentralization trend in a number of South European states has been an object of scientific research on numerous occasions. By focusing on the analysis and interpretation of decentralization in Greece, in the post-dictatorial period (1974-1989), a country on which no previous similar research has been undertaken, this study broadens the research area and contributes to the wider debate about the nature of "Central-Local Relations". The analysis of centralization and decentralization tendencies in the Modern Greek State, of the role of Greek local government in politics and public administration and the overview of the related institutional reforms provide the background of the research and show the limitations of approaches which focus on the institutional characteristics in explaining policy changes. An inter-organizational framework of analysis is adopted to explain the nature, timing and evolution of the decentralization reforms. Decentralization is seen as the product of relationships between organizations, entailing the redistribution of resources and the change of rules governing the interactions between central and local government. The politics of decentralization are thus examined under the framework of the relations of political parties, viewed as organizations, with local government. The varying degree of dependence on local government organizations, of political parties in opposition and in government is investigated in the light of the internal dynamics of the party organizations and the scope and intensity of party competition in the related issues. Furthermore, it is shown that these processes of intra and inter-organizational change in political parties have significantly influenced the contents of decentralization policies, their timing and introduction and the growing consensus on decentralization during the period under examination. Intergovernmental relations is the framework of analysis which further interprets the policy process of decentralization. The complex set of power-dependence relationships between central government, the different organizations of the state apparatus and local government explain the formulation and implementation of the decentralization reforms. Two powerful and contradictory influences are examined: those of the bureaucracy tending to hinder and delay the implementation of reforms affecting its power; and those of the professionals within or at the side of government and administration, tending to produce the fragmentation of both central and local government by birth and development of new types of organizations, which by pass bureaucratic routes of communication and exchange. The synthesis of the above-mentioned influences has caused significant alterations in the pattern of intergovernmental relations, which will in turn affect the further process of decentralization in Greece.

This thesis examines how the relationship between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities has been shaped by the way the media and related structures mediate their communication. This is a multi-method study based on data gathered from interview, print, broadcast and online material offering a new synthesis and analysis of the mediation of a century of turbulent bicommunal relations. The thesis begins by developing a theoretical framework to address these questions of mediation and offers a critical review of the historiography of bicommunal relations on the island. Three core empirical chapters follow. The first aims to understand the role of faceto- face communication in bicommunal relations based on interviews with both Greek and Turkish Cypriots. The second focuses on the representation of the Turkish-Cypriot community in the Greek-Cypriot print and broadcast media based on textual and discourse analyses of both extraordinary events and mundane coverage. This empirical study identifies the shifts of the hegemonic discourses in the Greek-Cypriot public sphere and the media rituals that are/were enacted in order for the discourses to be legitimised. Finally, the third chapter analyses samples of online bicommunal communication before and after the easing of ‘border' restrictions in 2003. It highlights the ways the new media can be used to move beyond those media rituals that confirm certain myths and to reenhance the normalisation of bicommunal coexistence. Overall, the thesis's findings suggest that the Greek-Cypriot print and broadcast media's symbolic power increased in certain historical periods of conflict and that through this power they territorialised people's reality and the process of assigning meanings to the other. It should be noted though, that this territorialisation is not homogenous, it is rather a product of conflict among local discourses. Finally, putting together the findings deriving from all three empirical studies leads to the suggestion that new media tools help/ed overcome a territorialisation process and in a sense recapture the dynamics of oral everydayness of the common past of the two Cypriot communities.

This study focuses on the Muslim Turkish minority in Greece and the development of its educational rights. It starts with the 1923 Lausanne Treaty that established the minorityhood of the Muslim ummah for the former Ottoman territory and explores various aspects of Minority education between then and the end of the 2000s. While doing so, it treats these rights as individual rights with a collective aspect; some of the individual rights of minorities can only be enjoyed together with others. Also, it draws a direct correlation between the Minority's education and its rights. That is, in the case that the education level of the Minority was high, there was less discrimination against members of the Minority, since they had the linguistic skills, educational background and self-confidence to fight against violations of their rights by the host country, Greece. Also, it emphasizes the involvement of external actors in the development of Minority education in Western Thrace. Concerning the development of Minority education, this study argues that minorities' rights are not only ‘given' by host states but also ‘claimed' by members of minorities through various struggles at the local, national and international level. Also, as well as the Minority and the Greek state, various external agents, such as Turkey and the European Union, are also involved in the struggle between the Minority and the Greek state over the former's education. The impact of these agents on the survival of the Minority's educational rights was immense, particularly from the 1980s onwards. It was primarily the inclusion of these external actors that pushed Greece to change its discriminatory policy against the Minority in 1991. This study demonstrates that a number of the individual rights emanating from the Minority's Greek citizenship have only been recognized since 1991. Nonetheless, I conclude that in spite of some improvements, the Minority's difficulties in the realm of rights with collective aspects, such as education of Minority students in a bilingual environment, persist.

The study makes a claim for a critical cosmopolitanism situated in daily performances and encounters of difference in Athens. In the wake of mass migration and economic crisis, the contemporary urban environment changes, creating new social spaces where identities and cultures interact. Festivals are seen as sites of creative dialogue between the Self, the Other and local communities. Festivals are examples of those new spaces where different performances of belonging give rise to alternative social imaginations. This study explores the emotional, cultural and political aspects of cosmopolitanism with the latter leading to the formation of an active civil society. As such, it seeks to evidence cosmopolitanism as an embodied, everyday practice. The research thus extends the current field by locating its empirical lens in a specific milieu. Empirical analysis of grounded cosmopolitanism anchored in behavioural repertoires redefines ubiquitous polarities of margin and centre, pointing towards social change in Athens. Fieldwork was conducted in Athens over eighteen months, comprising of building communities of participants involved in three festivals, including both artists and organisations. Research methods included observation and participation in the festivals, which were photographically documented for research visual diaries. Semi-structured interviews formed the core of the fieldwork. The approach allowed access to experiences, feelings and expressions through artworks, embodying ‘third spaces'. In the milieu of rapid social change, as urban localities transform as a result of economic and social crisis, the need for redefining politics emerges. The case studies explore how change in a celebratory moment can have a more sustainable legacy encouraging active citizenship. The analysis highlights the value of a model of cosmopolitanism in action, positing that transformation of the social and political must be local and grounded in everyday actions if it is to engage with promises of alternative futures.

The purpose of the thesis is to analyse the implementation of the European Union's Regional Policy (EURP) in Greece and to clarify and explain the contextual factors that resulted in the ineffective deployment of the policy. It adopts a comparative political economy approach and employs largely qualitative methods in order to collect empirical material. It develops a conceptual framework based on the theories of state and administrative capacity on the one hand and Europeanisation and implementation on the other. Empirically, the aim is to substantiate the difficulties that the country faced in the implementation of the EURP. Moreover, the aim is to explain these difficulties with reference to the patterns of interaction developed within the institutional network that was created as part of the EURP as well as the domestic authorities that supported the implementation of the policy. The Greek state has suffered from a series of weaknesses that impacted upon its internal administrative as well as its interactive capacities in the field of developmental policy. The recent Europeanisation of the country's polity has partially addressed these issues. Nonetheless, the fieldwork research on the implementation of the EURP reveals that these difficulties persisted and impacted upon the patterns of the implementation of the policy. Significant delays, implementation difficulties and reorganisations of the programmes were the main characteristics of all the programming periods. Furthermore, the introduction of the institutional network that would manage and monitor the implementation of the programmes has become embedded in the previously existing patterns of state-society interaction. The thesis has two main original contributions. The first consists of the empirical findings and particularly the detailed analysis of the patterns of implementation of the third Community Support Framework (CSF). Moreover, it offers the first detailed study of the separate administrative network that was established in the third CSF and attempts to depict its impact upon the patterns of institutional interactions that were established in previous programming periods. Secondly, the conceptual framework that it develops in order to account for the patterns of implementation of the EURP in Greece has not been employed for similar purposes. It postulates that it is important to account for the mediating influence that domestic political and administrative institutional arrangements play in the implementation of the EURP.

Cette étude se propose de dégager les variations du thème des oiseaux de nuit dans la Grèce ancienne, médiévale et moderne et de présenter une explication de ces différences en fonction du contexte historique, socioculturel et religieux. Pour la période ancienne, un inventaire des oiseaux de nuit a été établi et les occurrences concernant ces oiseaux dans la littérature, l’histoire, la mythologie et l’art ont été relevées. L’étude des oiseaux de nuit a été reprise à l’époque médiévale suivant la même approche en nous intéressant à la manière dont les principales caractéristiques des oiseaux de nuit ont été revues à la lumière de la conception judéo-chrétienne du monde, ainsi que dans d’autres textes comme le Physiologos, les nombreux Bestiaires, les Cyranides et le Poulologos.Enfin, pour la période moderne, notre attention s’est portée sur la place qu’occupent les oiseaux de nuit dans les chansons populaires, proverbes, fables, contes, poèmes et la littérature de jeunesse ainsi que dans les représentations qui leur sont associées dans l’art, l’artisanat, les emblèmes, timbres poste et monnaies. Cette étude diachronique vise à recenser les différentes espèces d’oiseaux et à évaluer le rôle qu’elles ont joué dans la pensée grecque au fil des siècles. Elle vise à établir -ou non- la continuité de leur symbolisme en fonction des conditions propres à la période envisagée. / This study has distinguished variations in the theme of nocturnal birds in Ancient, Medieval and Modern Greece, as well as presented an explanation within the historical, socio-cultural, and religious contexts. For the Ancient Greek timeframe, in an effort to outline symbolism, an inventory of nocturnal birds mentioned in zoological texts was created whereby the mention of such birds in literature, history, mythology, and art was also accounted for. The same approach was employed for the Medieval Greek timeframe. The study first focused on the revisions made to the main characteristics of these birds within the Judeo-Christian mindset, as opposed to Ancient Greece. These changes were not only adopted, but reinforced by other texts such as the Physiologos and many Bestiaries. The study then focused on the medico-magical traits of these nocturnal birds as outlined in the Cyranides, which contrasts with the Poulologos’ satire of Byzantine society by the intermediary of the birds’ behavior and biting remarks. Lastly, for the Modern Greek timeframe, the study explored the importance of nocturnal birds in folk songs, proverbs, fables, short stories, poems and youth literature. Further, the study outlined the birds’ privileged place in art, artisanal work, signs and emblems, postage stamps, and money. This diachronic study aimed to catalog the different bird species and to evaluate the role that they played in the development of the Greek line of thought through the centuries. It was also the study’s goal to ultimately establish—or not—the continuity of the symbolism as it relates to the time-specific conditions of each era.

This thesis is about the construction of 'satire' as an exclusive practice among the Cefalonian and hence proposes the term satiricity (satirikotita). It explores the construction of the category of the Cefalonian "madman" by means of dialogics between performance and evaluation. It is observed that the relation depends on three principles that obtain among audience members and a performer: conditioning the performance, participation in and observation of the performance and evaluation of it. Being one of the few anthropological studies on the Ionian islands of Greece, this thesis aims to contribute to the anthropology of the Ionian islands and of Cefalonia in particular. It looks at the relation between a town and a village on the ground of teasing events and refutes the argument of satire as an urban phenomenon only. It sets the elementary principles towards anthropology of satire and emphasizes the importance of studying everyday teasing events. It also contributes to understanding a 'native' researcher's presence in different ways. Satiricity is seen as a 'par excellence' feature that Cefalonians have. No matter if Cefalonia is a part of the Greek nation-state and people follow 'modern Greek culture', they still employ satiricity as a way of distancing themselves from Greeks. 'Distance' is forged on the basis of absolute exclusion of Greeks from having, practising and understanding satiricity in the way that Cefalonians do. The Conclusions leave the ground open for more investigation on teasing events and application of such viewpoints around other areas of the island, and of the Ionian islands or other Greek islands. I also point to studies looking at island and mainland teasing events and potential differences. After all, we need to examine not only how people construct the claim on the exclusivity of 'satire'. We need to examine how such a claim is applied, supported or contrasted and possibly rejected when Cefalonians engage with other Greeks away from the island.