Papers by Stelios Panageotou
Fast Capitalism, 2020
There was a tectonic shift in governance when Donald Trump assumed the office of the President of... more There was a tectonic shift in governance when Donald Trump assumed the office of the President of the United States. Countless journalists, politicians, and social scientists are writing on this rupture with the past and detailing the long list of 'not normal' actions routinely committed by the President who flagrantly flouts liberal democratic norms and values that past presidents at least appeared to uphold. What these comments amount to are diagnoses of "Trump's methodology," or what we call Trump's governing style, which defies just about every single expectation that citizens have of the President (Herbert, McCrisken, Wroe, 2019:3). What is not normal is that Trump's governing style "has been one of violating norms; the social expectations that guide appropriate behavior for actors in a given context" (Havercroft et al. 2018:3). In this case, these expectations are those citizens have of the President in the world's oldest purportedly democratic nation-state. Conventional interpretations characterize President Trump's 'not normal' governing style as one or a combination of the following traits-narcissistic, ethno-nationalist, authoritarian, and neoliberal. These governing styles are seen as means to achieve four distinct but overlapping ends-self-adulation, white supremacy, an authoritarian state, and a neoliberal utopia. For these commentators, while these goals do not necessarily deviate from the Republican political playbook, what is not normal is that Trump is so open and extreme in advancing these goals while holding no pretense to care about democratic decorum. From a different angle, however, these interpretations focus on the most ordinary aspects of Trump and neglect to consider what is truly novel about his governing style because their interpretations are based on traditional political theories of governance and power. These accounts position Trump's governing style as exceptional but tend to ignore that the aforementioned
Fast Capitalism, 2020
Mired in inconsistency, contradiction, and scandal, Donald J. Trump’s presidency appears to be an... more Mired in inconsistency, contradiction, and scandal, Donald J. Trump’s presidency appears to be anything but normal. This has prompted a great deal of searching among social scientists and journalists to understand what exactly is behind Trump’s erratic governing style. These narratives center the new normal of American presidential politics on the extreme form of Trump’s narcissistic behavior and his flagrant commitment to ethno-nationalist, authoritarian, and neoliberal practices. However, because these narratives rely on traditional political strategies and theories, they do not fully capture the most novel aspects of the Trump mode of governance. What is “not normal” about President Donald Trump is that his governing style is irreducible to conventional statecraft and political goals because Trump is not just a celebrity/businessman-turned-politician. Rather, Trump the person is inherently tied to Trump the personal brand, and the governing style of President Trump follows the market-oriented logic of personal brands, which is primarily oriented towards maximizing symbolic capital. Rather than position Trump’s governing style as motivated to achieve self-adulation, white supremacy, an authoritarian state, or neoliberal utopia, we reconsider Trump’s governing style as an attempt to capture the attention of the collective consciousness and focus it on Trump as a personal brand.
SAGE Handbook of Political Sociology, 2018
Political sociologists have identified a seeming contradiction: over the past forty years, the wo... more Political sociologists have identified a seeming contradiction: over the past forty years, the world has seen a renaissance in public engagement practices; yet during the same time, economic inequality has increased dramatically. Resolving this contradiction requires a reconsideration of political action in capitalist democratic societies. Similar to how Steven Lukes reconceived of power according to three dimensions, a similar move is made with regard to political action. Political sociologists tend to posit that only two dimensions of political action exist—electoral and participatory-deliberative activity. However, abiding by these two dimensions overlooks a third dimension of political action, which is integral to understanding how corporate power is constituted in the twenty-first century. Economic actions are themselves forms of political participation. Through economic activities, like consumption, individuals provide corporations with the economic capital that they translate into political power. Rather than understanding corporations as external, private entities colonizing and corrupting the pure logic of democracy, this chapter develops a theory of corporations as ‘franchise governments’ that are neither private nor public entities but firmly situated within both camps.
The mainstream narrative of the Greek financial crisis blames Greece for being the architect of i... more The mainstream narrative of the Greek financial crisis blames Greece for being the architect of its own financial crisis. This narrative reduces the complexity and global nature of the Greek financial crisis to an internal and national focus that justifies a strategy of structural adjustment and austerity targeted to reduce the public debt. Yet, Greece's public debt has grown over the course of treatment. This paper contends that the strategy intended to resolve the Greek financial crisis is not a resolution strategy at all—it is more accurately conceptualized as a crisis management strategy, which is insufficient to reduce the public debt and instead fuels a deflationary spiral in Greece. The Troika, consisting of the European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund, alongside the Eurogroup, credit rating agencies, and private investors endorse a crisis management strategy that has engendered an unprecedented wave of discipline, surveillance, and control alongside a neoliberal restructuring of the Greek economy that has functioned to protect private interests. In effect, power is increasingly wielded by unelected international political and financial institutions, which not only temper the sovereignty Greece, but also undermine the functioning of democratic processes.
The proliferation of debt crises around the world since the 1980’s has generated debt-repayment n... more The proliferation of debt crises around the world since the 1980’s has generated debt-repayment negotiations prioritizing austerity in debtor countries. This forty-year history of debt crises in the Global South and North now allows comparison of these negotiations and their impacts. We examine the distinct and historically specific trajectories in Latin American and Greece, highlighting the foundations of each experience of debt crisis. We focus on the institutions responsible for managing crisis and their reliance on similar austerity strategies to compel debtor countries into a neoliberal restructuring of their economies. This paper examines the similarities and differences in austerity policy through a comparative-historical analysis of Latin American and Greek experiences of debt crisis. The results of such policies and the political actors involved in implementing austerity are also examined.
DEDICATION I dedicate this work to my parents, Vasilis Panageotou and Diana Panageotou, for all t... more DEDICATION I dedicate this work to my parents, Vasilis Panageotou and Diana Panageotou, for all their support and love. Thank you mom for the countless hours of encouragement, and thank you dad for the countless hours of advising and editing. You have been integral to my life and my sociological career. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Acknowledged as a growing human rights issue, hundreds of thousands of migrants residing in Greec... more Acknowledged as a growing human rights issue, hundreds of thousands of migrants residing in Greece exist in a state of -bare life‖ (Agamben) without protected political rights and subjected to brutal violence. Individuals existing in a state of bare life are excluded from political participation and so are abandoned to violence and death. This formation plays out at multiple levels of governance with important implications for sociological analysis. As Greece's financial crisis and move toward austerity continue to devastate the economy, the production of violence against immigrants has increased. This surge is exacerbated by supranational institutions like the European Union coordinating policy frameworks for member states that focus on the exclusion of migrants by utilizing a Fortress Europe policy paradigm. Since the EU failed to establish a legal framework for the inclusion of migrants, the Greek state has complete sovereignty to include legal migration into state law. Due to the inefficient and cumbersome legalization process, however, migrants are excluded from Greek society and protected rights. In addition, in the midst of economic crisis, the Greek state has diverted attention from the burden of harsh austerity measures by exploiting public racism and xenophobia. The Greek state maintains sovereignty and legitimacy by arresting, detaining, and expelling immigrants depicted as criminals plaguing Greek society. These strategies have supported the rise of the right-wing political party Golden Dawn which acts as a paternalistic protector of the Greek people by providing social welfare and protecting Greeks from perceived criminal immigrants by perpetrating violence against those immigrants.