The Impact of the Economic Adjustment Programmes on Greece: The Case of the 2010 Pension Reform

The aim of this paper is to study the pension reform that took place in Greece in 2010 within the context of the ongoing economic crisis and under the pressure of the EU/IMF/ECB Economic Adjustment Programmes (EPAs). It uses knowledge utilization literature and argues that reform success or failure has not to do with the institutional characteristics of the policy that is being reformed and the polity where the reform takes place, nor with the actors’ preferences. Instead, reform success or failure is a matter of policy design. The impact of policy design on reform is conceptualised as ‘reform technology’, which is understood as the efficient ‘engagement’ of expert knowledge in the policymaking process. The paper hypothesizes that the Troika have had a positive impact on Greece’s reform technology and that this in combination with the harsh conditionality of the EPAs resulted to a far-reaching reform being introduced in 2010. Key words: European Union; government; Knowledge.