During the entire post-dictatorial period in Greece (1974-2009), the governing parties, i.e., the conservative Nea Dimokratia and the socialist PASOK imposed and perpetuated a clientelistic organization and function of the entire state apparatus, which I have called “Greek bureaucratism;” this was a rather functional party-state patronage serving their politico-economic interests (Samatas, 1993). Administrative reforms were pursued and implemented only to the extent that they did not inhibit party control of the state apparatus and the wider public sector. As a result, and also under the international fiscal crisis impact, Greece since 2009 faces a dramatic debt crisis, which has jeopardized her Eurozone status and future in the E.U. In exchange for a bailout “memorandum” designed by the troika of European Union (EU), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), draconian austerity measures on public spending and drastic compulsory administrative reforms have been enforced. This paper analyses the impact of the current neoliberal austerity reforms on the structure and function of the Greek state apparatus from a socio-political control perspective. The aim of this socio-political analysis is to re-examine the meaning and substance of state modernization under these crisis conditions. It argues that the enforced by the troika disciplinary, wholesale neoliberal state reforms, like the compulsory, drastic, horizontal personnel reduction, are not a modernization policy; they are mainly designed with fiscal and budget criteria, lacking both administrative rationality and social legitimacy. Hence, they have a high administrative and social cost, which is the overall cost of the bankrupted Greek clientelistic bureaucratism. Hopefully, this painful process wont be beneficial only to the foreign lenders of Greece, but it will contribute to the end of the corrupted post- dictatorial politico-administrative system and to a renovation of the Greek state and society.
