Top-down reconciliation and the role of time : The case of the Greek Civil War

• Main Author: Stratakos, Dimitrios
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för samhällsstudier (SS) 2013
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-27448

Despite the vast research by both international and Greek academics underlining the reconciliatory policies and reforms that the Greek political leadership implemented between theyears 1974 and 1989, little is stated on a grassroots level by the ex-combatants of the Greek Civilwar about these policies with regards to their reconciliatory effects, as well as the need for their implementation twenty years after the end of the conflict (1949). The overall objective of this research is to evaluate if the series of the policies implemented by the Greek government had actually a reconciliatory effect on the active participants of the Civil war, as well as an impact on the Greek society as a whole. The late introduction of these policies will be also taken intoconsideration. This research is based upon analytical and conceptual considerations drawn by the current literature related to the concept of reconciliation. Particularly, it is focusing on two specific topics; the one of top-down reconciliation approaches, such as policies and reforms implemented by governments and the other of reconciliation time. The findings of the research will be compared to the considerations drawn by the literature in relation to the aforementioned topics. This study is qualitative, based on semi-structured interviews complemented with secondary sources, in which an abductive logic of inference is followed. Greece is taken as a case in order to highlight the results contributing to the context of a larger debate, that of top-down late coming reconciliation measures. The analysis of this study gives a deeper insight regarding the importance of top-down approaches as such and the actual time of their implementation. Taking into consideration the Greek case and based on the perception of a sample of twenty-two individuals the results show that the top-down initiatives implemented in Greece, due to their misuse by the political leadership, did not enhance reconciliation significantly. In addition, regarding the time of reconciliation, the interviewees supported that reconciliation efforts in Greece should not have come with a twenty-five years delay. Instead, they should have commenced as soon as possible after the end of the Civil war. These field work results will contribute to future research on similar topics.