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The Greek Pension Tragedy: A case of failure in Governance

Tinios, Platon, (2016),  “The Greek Pension Tragedy: A case of failure in Governance”, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 14 April

The Greek pension system is one of the least successful in the world. Without providing income security at old age, it, nevertheless, hastened bankruptcy in 2010; six years later, pensions are about to derail the third successive bailout. The usual explanation splits the period in two: Failure up to 2010 was due to reform inactivity. Failure after 2010 is due to external factors, despite policy activism. This paper takes a unified view, encompassing both the earlier ‘talk without action’, and the later ‘action without talk’. Failure in both is due to the ‘technology of governance’, a political malfunction, rather than to technical issues.

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