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Prime Ministers in Greece: The Paradox of Power by Kevin Featherstone and Dimitris Papadimitriou (review)

Readers interested in modern Greece are familiar with the work of Kevin Featherstone, E. Venizelos Professor of Contemporary Greek Studies at the London School of Economics’ European Institute, and Dimitris Papadimitriou, professor of politics at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. Their latest book, Prime Ministers in Greece: The Paradox of Power, is a timely analysis of the problems and challenges that confronted Greek prime ministers of the metapolitefsi (post-Junta Greece) as they attempted to establish operational control and coordination of government machinery to achieve their policy objectives. The volume centers on the five prime ministers who served between 1974 and 2009, before the onset of the financial crisis and the super vision and management of Greek public policy and finance by the socalled troika: the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank. Chapters 2 through 7 are case studies involving the premierships of Constantinos Karamanlis (1974 – 80), Andreas Papandreou (1981 – 89, 1993 – 96), Constantinos Mitsotakis (1990 – 93), Costas Simitis (1996 – 2004), and Costas Karamanlis (2004 – 9). Chapters 1 and 2 provide the book’s theoretical framework, while chapters 8 and 9 are devoted to conclusions, international comparisons, and implications for reform. This book was of special interest to me, having served during part of Andonis Samaras’s prime ministership as president of an independent Greek government agency from August 2012 until October 2014. It confirmed my experiences in the very sensitive and troubled field of higher education and the labyrinth of Greek bureaucracy. The volume is a primer on the pathology of Greek public administration, focusing on operations at the top of the government. A similar study of the pathology of Greek bureaucracy, of the