Evika Karamagioli

Time to Rethink Refugee and Migrant Health in Europe: Moving from Emergency Response to Integrated and Individualized Health Care Provision for Migrants and Refugees

In the last three years, the European Union (EU) is being confronted with the most significant influx of migrants and refugees since World War II. Although the dimensions of this influx—taking the global scale into account—might be regarded as modest, the institutional response to that phenomenon so far has been suboptimal, including the health sector. While inherent challenges of refugee and migrant (R&M) health are well established, it seems that the EU health response oversees, to a large extend, these aspects. A whole range of emergency-driven health measures have been implemented throughout Europe, yet they are failing to address adequately the changing health needs and specific vulnerabilities of the target population. With the gradual containment of the migratory and refugee waves, three years after the outbreak of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’, we are, more than ever, in need of a sustainable and comprehensive health approach that is aimed at the integration of all of migrants and refugees—that is, both the new and old population groups that are already residing in Europe—in the respective national health systems.

Can Open-Government Models Contribute to More Collaborative Ways of Governance?

The Greek political landscape and the way public administration and political procedures are performed is an ideal field of study of the enabling potential of the Internet to foster new, dynamic forms of democracy, introducing open and “citizen-friendly” forms of government mainly by functioning as a horizontal communication channel allowing polyphonic discussions as well as one-to-one dialogues.

Cross-sectional study on awareness and knowledge of torture investigation and documentation among Greek doctors and senior medical students

Doctors in Greece face the possibility of encountering a person that has suffered torture, especially since the high rates of refugees’ and migrants’ inflows that took place over the last years. In order to assess the awareness and the knowledge of doctors and senior medical students in Greece regarding a manual on effective investigation and documentation of torture such as Istanbul Protocol (official United Nation document since 1999), a cross-sectional study was conducted using a structured anonymous questionnaire. The sample was doctors practicing in public hospitals in Greece, doctors volunteering at a non-governmental organization (NGO) and undergraduate medical students in their final year of studies in the Medical School of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The data were analyzed using IBM SPSS version 23, using descriptive statistics and statistical significance tests.In a total of 289 participants, the mean total score of Istanbul Protocol knowledge was 4.43 ± 1.104 (the maximum possible score was 10) and the mean total score of Istanbul Protocol awareness was 2.04 ± 1.521 (the maximum possible score was 10). The most important conclusion was that among doctors and senior medical students, there seem to be knowledge, awareness, and information deficit about Istanbul Protocol and several issues relating to torture. The overall research outcome highlights the need for the development of a relevant informative/educational program, in order to cover the corresponding existing needs of the population of doctors in Greece.

Participatory Constitutional Design: A Grassroots Experiment for (Re)Designing the Constitution in Greece

This chapter reports how participatory processes and ICT tools can go against rule-driven bureaucratic approaches to political participation and public deliberation, trying to defy strict procedural norms in favor of more flexible formats for citizen mobilization, political co-thinking, and sustained social innovation in the area of constitutional building. After describing key theoretical issues on trends and perspectives of public participation in constitution building processes, we review arguments in favor of ICT and social media use in constitutional building and then discuss an ongoing Greek bottom-up experiment named Syntagma 2.0 that introduced an innovative co-creative process for the production of a new Constitution for Greece, to be delivered by the citizens for the citizens. Based on the results of the aforementioned project so far, we present success factors for such initiatives.

In the Quest of Opened-Up Governmental Policies in Greece: Challenges and Recommendations

The chapter describes the key elements of the innovative effort of the Greek public administration over the last 5 years to enable the transition to a new public administration model via opened-up governmental policies so as to improve public services provision, increase public integrity and ensure a more effective management of public resources After showcasing the most representative tools developed so far, the authors will discuss their level of maturity and their potential in light of open data policy requirements.

Assessing the Social Media Presence and Usage Patterns of Major Greek Municipalities: Towards Local Government 2.0?

Social media tools can enhance governments’ abilities to interact with and engage citizens as well as to meet their expectations for transparency as they have the potential to make policy processes more inclusive and thereby rebuild the long lost confidence between governments and citizens. Little is known about how Greek local authorities capitalize on the potential of social media as communication channels. The purpose of this study is therefore to explore if and how 52 major municipalities all over Greece (administrative capitals of the corresponding prefectures) utilize Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for managing their external communication with citizens during the April-June 2014 timeframe, which covered the period of municipal elections in Greece that took place in mid-May 2014. Assessing the Social Media Presence and Usage Patterns of Major Greek Municipalities: Towards Local Government 2.0?