Blog #7: Opinion: Has Greece's democracy regressed?

In the past few months Greece has taken a turn for the worst both economically and governmentally. As seen in the news the past few years Greece has become the country with the greatest debt and relies heavily on outside resources to survive. These two factors are causing Greece's democratic government to be overcome by a aristocracy style of governing. The author of the article, Anastasakis, also credits "clientelism, nepotism and corruption" as having a huge influence on the country's "sovereignty." Because of all this turmoil in the last four years many people in Greece are losing their trust in democracy and the "middle class" of the political system is shrinking. It is becoming increasingly popular to be a member of the extreme political party towards the far left or the far right. Anastasakis says that the surprising source of a lot of Greece's problems come from the western democratic countries. Northern European states are making matters worse because they are telling Greece that the solution to the problem is not freedom in the state but to assign a commissioner to oversee the country. 


I agree with Anastasakis that Greece's democratic government has fallen majorly due to the economic down turn. It is also interesting that outside countries are making maters much worse. As Anastasakis writes "Greece has looked to the west to improve its democracy, for the emulation of models in the state administration and education and legal systems." The very countries that promote freedom and a government that is not controlled by one person but the people is influencing Greece to assign one person to control the country (Anastasakis). This brings up the interesting idea of is democracy good for everyone? It seems that Greece has been struggling for at least thirty years to create a democratic government that will hold up to the world like America but they are failing. Their people seem to believe that fascism will work better in their country. As a democratic nation that has reaped the benefits of democracy, America should be promoting it in Greece not calling for a commissioner to oversee the whole country. That sounds more like a dictatorship than a democracy.    


http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/01/opinion/greece-democracy/?hpt=wo_t4