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This article explores the negative attitudes towards the United States that exist in present day Greek society. The anti‐US attitudes in Greece are greater than in other EEC member countries and exist across various social and economic characteristics of the Greek population. Possible reasons for and sources of these attitudes are explored.

Papandreou and the Pan‐Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) are committed to bring about change in Greek society, but they must decide how much change, and how quickly that can be accomplished without hindering the party's chances for electoral victory. Data drawn from two separate surveys covering, respectively, relevance of three types of issues (foreign policy, civil liberties and economic policy) on the voting of Greeks, and Greek attitudes towards EEC membership/unification of Western Europe, suggest that the leftist parties in Greece are supported in large part by those who do not favour strong ties with the West. The influence of the US inside Greece cannot be easily limited, and successful pursuit of an interdependent and multidimensional foreign policy, limiting Greece's dependence on the West (especially the USA) is not easy to achieve. Papandreou faces problems from the right, who do not favour his measures of change, and from the extreme left, who feel he is reneging on promises; he needs to maintain his electoral support while at the same time trying to limit international conflict.

The purpose of this paper is to examine politically exposed persons and major Greek political parties' funding sources as well as the anti-money laundering regulatory framework for political parties' funding sources.

This paper aimed at investigating data about Greek political parties' funding by identifying new problems and developing solutions.

The main findings are that Greek political parties' major sources of revenues are public subsidies and bank loans. Also, data show that two major Greek political parties cannot easily repay their bank loans (especially PASOK) and must renegotiate terms with banks and must agree for a new, long-term and lower payment schedule at a lower interest rate. Extending the period of repayment is necessary for viability of debts, and banks will protect themselves against default and total losses of about 253.1 million euros from the two major political parties. Public subsidies are the only collateral that Greek political parties offer to banks.

As a result of research, structural changes are necessary to immediately be made in order to cope with politically exposed persons and political parties' corruption and funding in Greece, especially during the current fiscal crises. Greek political parties need to raise funds from other sources than only public subsidies. Anti-Money Laundering Regulatory Framework have to stop conduit contributions and force banks to apply Know Your Client Principle for donors. Also, to include on Suspicious Activity Report a checkbox of “Political Finance Violations”. Establishing a code of conduct informing employees of the risks and subsequences of political corruption, creating a culture of honesty and high ethics and implementing Controlled Foreign Corporation legislation to cope with corruption in political parties' funding can help to recover ill-gotten assets. Finally, implementing Business Principles for Countering Bribery and UK Bribery Act will increase transparency in funding of Greek political parties.

The paper examines corruption and funding sources of Greek political parties, especially during the period 2009-2011, suggesting policy measures to deter and detect money laundering and illegal funding to politically exposed persons and political parties. Findings offer important measures for political analysts, government and society as a whole. A stable political system is prerequisite for a healthy society and for economic growth.

News media have been shown to have a significant influence in the selection and perception of issues in political campaigns. This has become known as “agenda‐setting”. The evolution of the agenda‐setting literature is traced and the links with political campaigning and political marketing are identified. Although the term is widely used in Australasia, Europe and North America, there is no previous empirical research on agenda‐setting in Greece. The article outlines a content analysis of press coverage over the period of the campaign for the European elections in Greece in 1999. The results are contrasted with an analysis of party manifestos and press releases and with public opinion prior to the campaign. Differences between the three agenda groups are identified.

The paper attempts to assess the impact of reforms of the last 25 years on Greek administration and more specifically on its Napoleonic features. Given that those have been reshaped by country specific socio‐political dynamics, the analysis starts by pointing out the Napoleonic features but also specific features its Greek variant. These form the context of reforms undertaken and determine their trajectories as well as their limitations.

This paper examines four basic reform areas linked to important features of Napoleonic states: centrality of the state, centralised bureaucratic structures, labour relations in the public sector, and citizens‐administration relations. The rationale of reforms is discussed in relation to NPM trends but also to domestic challenges and priorities.

The significance of reforms undertaken varies. The state's presence in the economy has been significantly reduced and decentralisation reforms are more important politically than administratively. Citizens' rights and service delivery have been conceived rather as forms of democratisation and modernisation than as managerial reforms. Only recently labour relations in the public sector have been partly challenged while other reform aspects such as “agencification”, systematically by‐passing existing bureaucratic structures start to be part of the picture. Change has been incremental and followed pre‐established paths. The “Napoleonic” features of the state have not been seriously affected and reforms have hardly been reshaped by the new managerial paradigm. While the state remains the main reform actor and the law a typical policy instrument, a distinctive reform path emerges in Greece, as defined by the apparently contradictory rationale of a number of initiatives responding to old as much to new challenges.

Provides a brief account of important aspects of the Greek variant of the Napoleonic state and the context of recent reforms. Features and limits of reforms are also discussed. Finally, a tentative assessment answers the central question of the paper.

The purpose of this paper is to review the state of knowledge on strikes and collective action.

Review of theoretical and empirical literature, including comparative literature.

Both strike activity and other forms of collective action have declined in many advanced capitalist countries. There has been a rise in the number of strike ballots and in tribunal claims but these trends do not constitute a straightforward vindication of the displacement hypothesis. However there is evidence of an increase in general strikes in parts of Western Europe and of protest campaigns involving coalitions of unions and civil society organizations.

The paper tries to summarize the current state of knowledge and to map out directions for future research.

Greece had to undertake several reforms under intense policy conditionality pressures – stemming from the three financial support programs agreed between the Greek Government and the Troika – and political instability. Within this context, this study aims to analyze the role of politicians and technical assistance staff in the administrative reform of the Greek state budget.

The study adopts the approach of an extreme country-case study which is analyzed through a theoretical framework with insights from the resource dependency theory and the concept of policy conditionality. The theoretical framework is supported by documents of the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission, including the technical Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) and their progress reports and is informed by the outcome of interviews with General Accounting Office executives.

While the budget reform eventually met the MoU requirements, the frequent changes at the government level, the constant renegotiations with the Troika that initiated changes to the plan and the instability of the technical assistance teams formed to support the reform contributed to important implementation delays.

The study contributes to the research agenda on accounting reforms during periods of financial crises by providing evidence on the role of politicians’ level of ownership and technical assistance staff contribution.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of major non-economic events such as the results of five Greek national Parliamentary elections during 1996-2009 on the Greek banks’ stocks.

Using daily data from the Athens Stock Exchange, event study methodology and market model, the results of this paper claim that the five Greek national Parliamentary elections during the 1996-2009 period had no statistically significant effect on the Greek banks’ stocks. The results show that cumulative average abnormal returns (CAARs) were slightly positive or negative for Greek banks’ stocks but not statistically significant at 5 and 10 per cent confidence levels.

Investors were not surprised and the political information caused no change and no influence on the future and course of the stock market. Expected winning political party was the same as the actual winning political party. Results showed that during pre-event period of 2000 and 2004 Greek national Parliamentary elections, CAARs for Greek banks’ stocks were slightly positive and after the event period were slightly negative but not statistically significant at all periods. During 2007 Greek national Parliamentary elections, the effect of elections changed because CAARs were generally slightly negative during the pre-event period and positive after the event period. Also, non-statistically significant CAARs indicate that there is no evidence that either political party was able to manipulate bank stocks’ prices for election purposes.

The main contribution of this paper is to provide evidence about effects of national elections to bank stocks’ prices which have important implications for stockbrokers, investors, politicians and political analysts.