Political parties and democratic representation in the era of crisis: mapping changes and functions in the composition of the Greek political elites

In May 2010 the Greek government of PASOK signed the first Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The austerity policies that followed have fed into a deep crisis, not only on a socioeconomic level, but also at the level of politics. Greek political elites have undergone a significant transformation which has entailed, among other features, an emerging democratic deficit, the changing of recruitment channels of MPs, a high turnover rate of political figures, and a reduction in the kind of nepotism which had previously characterized some aspects of Greek politics. This evolution can to a large extent be evaluated and interpreted using academic approaches to the study of political elites and their attitude during crisis periods (i.e. changing in recruitment procedures, emerging of new political personnel and political powers, rejection of political system by a considerable number of the electorate, amendment of decision making process). The current paper, by taking into consideration elite theories and theories of democratic representation aims to explore the aforementioned changes. Under this rationale we aim to examine the recruitment, reproduction and composition of the Greek political personnel (MPs, Greek MEPs, as well as, government members) before and during the current crisis period, by mapping and evaluating the most basic changes. This main research aim can be further analyzed by the following questions: To what extent is differentiated the demographic profile of the Greek political elites? How differentiated are the new political powers in terms of political personnel? Which are the main recruitment channels of the political personnel before and during the crisis (political parties and intra-party organs, political leadership, local administration, Media, State Organizations, civil society etc)? How strong remains nepotism in the composition of political elites? To what extent it is evident a circulation of political elites, through the changing of political parties? How important remains the role of political leaderships in the recruitment of political elites (i.e. possession of important political positions from party leaders’ consultants) For the scopes of the current research we are going to conduct a census- quantitative research of the curricula vitae as well as the composition of the Greek political elites, as deriving from official sources (i.e. literature, official websites, and newspapers archives). Our research period is defined between 1989 and 2015 (elections of September). Part of the specific research (1989-2009), was the main object of a completed and awarded PhD thesis (March 2015) and aims to update the specific findings by including the variable of crisis.