Iasonas Lamprianou

Contemporary Political Participation Research: A Critical Assessment

The issue of political participation has been a substantive area of interest for both sociologists and political scientists, mainly because it pertains to the quintessential act of democratic citizenship – voting at election for the House of Representatives. While elections and voting behaviour attract the attention of many social science researchers, various manifestations and forms associated with political engagement in a broader sense have also received extensive study. This chapter aims primarily to critically present a selection of contemporary approaches and methodological tools for investigating political participation. Granted that this is already an enormous area of research being conducted, it is unrealistic to expect a fully-fledged examination of all works published so far. For the twofold purpose of this paper it suffices (a) to discuss a wide range as possible of quite different conceptualizations and definitions of political participation, while (b) attempting to show that the typological division between conventional and unconventional political participation is often artificial and elusive. Discussion about extremist and often aggressive forms of political participationist activism (as they are described in contemporary research), might be contrasted to the perceptions cherished by the ancient Greek democrats as to citizen roles and civil duties within their community, showing that classical Athenian democracy (in theory and practice) did not draw any sharp distinction between diverse or conflicting types of participation. The chapter concludes with a short section whereby the principalfindings from this critical assessment are briefly summarized along with some reflections on the foundational role of sociological perspectives on political participation analysis.

Political trust in extremis

The literature points out that political trust can have a major impact on democratic politics by affecting political participation, institutional effectiveness and policy choices. Given the significance of political trust for the functioning of democracy, it is important know how the way citizens relate with political actors and institutions changes in times of extraordinary shock. Using Greece as a case and data from successive rounds of the European Social Survey, this article shows that, during times of major distress, the way schools and hospitals are run – the “social” performance of government – has an important effect on political trust. This effect is stronger during the economic crisis than during normal conditions, as more citizens turn to the state for protection but are disappointed by administrative inefficiency and malfunction. The evidence suggests that international creditors must pay more systematic attention to the administrative effectiveness of social welfare institutions rather than solely focus on economic performance.

Unintended consequences of forced policy-making in high stakes examinations: the case of the Republic of Cyprus

This article describes briefly the education system of Cyprus and elaborates on the recent changes in its large-scale assessment (LSA) programme. Until 2005, two independent LSA programmes existed: one for school-graduation purposes and one for gaining entrance to higher education. The introduction of a dual-purpose LSA program in 2006, due to unexpected external political and legal events, had unintended consequences, thus making Cyprus an instructive modern case-study. The article follows three threads based on the same story. The first thread stresses the problems that emerged because the same LSA programme is used for graduation (mostly criterion-referenced) and selection (purely norm-referenced) purposes. The second thread discusses the problems arising from the lack of comparability between examination subjects. The third thread stresses the vulnerability of the system, because Cyprus partly depends on other countries to offer access to higher education to its citizens.

How far right local party organizations develop The organizational buildup of the Greek Golden Dawn

The literature on far right parties emphasizes the importance of party organization for electoral persistence. Yet, a lot is still unknown about the organizational development of these parties. This article examines the microdynamics of organizational development and explores why some party organizations succeed and others fail. It focuses on the local rather than the national level and analyzes grassroots activities rather than party leadership, institutions, or members. To analyze organizational development, the article uses an original and unique data set of 3594 activities of the Greek Golden Dawn (GD) supplemented by interviews with the GD leadership and activists as well as with evidence from hundreds of newspaper reports. It uses this evidence to trace local party activism and to document variation in local organizational outcomes. To account for why some local party organizations succeed or fail, it suggests that, rather than solely following electoral logic, the organizational development of far right parties also relates to the way they respond to challenges from antifascist groups and state authorities.

Institutional Grievances and Right-Wing Extremism: Voting for Golden Dawn in Greece

Abstract This article examines the effect of institutional grievances on extreme right voting by using an original survey to analyse voter support for the Greek Golden Dawn (GD). The article first examines various theories of extreme-right voting and then develops the concept of institutional grievances. Using structural equation modeling, it shows that that the strongest correlates of GD voting are those capturing institutional grievances. Economic grievances have a limited and cultural grievances a moderate effect on GD voting. The article compares the findings with those of the broader literature on extreme-right voting. It concludes with some suggestions on how to link the findings with broader developments in Europe.

Transition to Higher Education: social and political perspectives

Higher Education (HE) is a major determinant of economic and social development, and thus, many countries strive to remain competitive through relevant national education strategies. HE is also relevant for the production and reproduction of a social class system (Karabel, 2005) and it is mediated to realities and discourses on the knowledge society and knowledge capitalism (

Has family involvement migrated into higher education? An investigation of how administrative staff document the phenomenon in students’ university experiences in Cyprus

Abstract Families have been getting more and more involved in their children’s education. This paper presents findings of a study investigating family involvement in their members’ undergraduate studies attending a state (non-fee-paying) and a private (fee-paying) university in Cyprus. The data presented in the paper were collected via online logs completed by administrative personnel in the two universities documenting incidents of family involvement. The data analysis demonstrates how similarly the phenomenon manifests in both universities and suggests that where the two universities differ is more in the intensity of the various modes of family involvement. It also projects students’ desires and encouragement of their family’s involvement and their families’ intervention to protect or guide them. The findings of the study are discussed in view of cultural and societal norms and changes about parenthood and the relationship between families and their university age members in a marketized higher education context.

International assessment policy reform: nothing new under the sun

For the first editorial for Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice in 1994 Patricia Broadfoot wrote, ‘Politicians around the world are looking to changes in assessment practice to effect policy decisions concerning the conduct and desired outcomes of education. They have realised that if the stakes are high enough with individual life chances depending on the outcome of such assessments, any changes in the form or content of what is to be measured will bring about equivalent changes in curriculum emphasis’ (Broadfoot, 1994, p. 1). In the almost 25 years since she penned those words, nothing much seems to have changed. If anything, politicians are increasingly using assessment policy changes in the hopes of strengthening their country’s social and economic standing in the global marketplace. Governments set assessment standards policy in the belief that learners’ assessment outcomes are a good measure of national educational achievement, and that a well educated citizenry ensures that the country will be internationally competitive. They desire both to influence and to gauge reliably how well the various components of the system – including individual students and teachers, localities, regions and the nation itself – are performing against education policy objectives. Quite commonly the measure used is derived from assessment results, resulting in a shift from using assessments, especially tests and examinations, as measurement instruments designed to produce information to a reliance on testing to influence policy and instruction. Once assessment systems become high stake, even those that might be reasonable monitors of educational success can lose dependability and credibility (Koretz 2008). State-led assessment policies and practices have been the subject of much debate. As Stephen Ball has written, ‘policies are contested, interpreted and enacted in a variety of arenas of practice and the rhetorics, texts and meanings of policymakers do not always translate directly and obviously into institutional practices. . .. They are inflected, mediated, resisted and misunderstood, or in some cases simply prove unworkable’ (Ball, 2017, p. 10). While Ball is writing about England, we can clearly see these debates manifesting themselves in many countries. The role of national assessments can become dominated by a culture of delivery – in particular, the fast delivery of government policies as politicians look for quick wins between elections. However, not all countries’ assessment policies mirror the English model and the articles in this special issue explore and analyse a range of different national (and supra-national) assessment policy approaches and perspectives. They examine the implications of high stakes testing in the relationship between assessment policy and practice, evaluating both major assessment policy reforms and particular assessment policies, as well as the relationship between assessment and governance. Not surprisingly for a government that has an official ‘nudge’ unit (the Behavioural Insights Team, http://www.behaviouralinsights.co.uk/), England’s policymakers have, ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: PRINCIPLES, POLICY & PRACTICE 2018, VOL. 25, NO. 3, 227–229 https://doi.org/10.1080/0969594X.2018.1482094

Determinants of Early Retirement in the European Union

This study uses a subsample of 18 European countries of the first release of the dataset of the fifth round of the European Social Survey to investigate the factors that affect the desired age of retirement and the discrepancy between the actual and the desired age of retirement. We focus on a subsample of around 9,000 respondents in the age range of 50–64. We used multilevel linear regression models to investigate our research questions. We found that the desired age of retirement is explained by both personal (demographic and career) characteristics as well as country-specific characteristics (e.g., the GDP). However, the discrepancy between the actual and the desired retirement age is explained only by personal (demographic and career) characteristics. We suggest that early retirement is not just a habitus which appeared in the past decades, but also a complex phenomenon with social as well as financial characteristics.

‘All we need is love (and money)’! What do higher education students want from their families?

Abstract Research has shown that consistent family support improves higher education (HE) students’ chances for adjustment and graduation but family over-involvement negatively affects students’ well-being. We theoretically bridge three largely disjointed bodies of literature (namely, family ‘support’, ‘involvement’ and ‘over-involvement’) and show that families of undergraduate students very often engage in roles traditionally reserved for lower levels of education. Through a large-scale, quantitative university student survey in two universities in Cyprus, we empirically show that the three bodies of literature should be unified, because family involvement in HE is better conceptualised and operationalised as a continuum. We further suggest that family involvement in HE can be split into two qualitatively different and empirically not significantly related constructs: rearguard and front line family involvement. In addition, the students seem not only to approve, but also encourage more family involvement (even ‘over-involvement’), and state that they would like their families to provide them not just with more financial help, but with more emotional support as well. The discussion extends to include an analysis of students’ perceptions of university actors’ attitudes towards family involvement.