Classical Greece

A few weeks ago, in its annual preview of the new year about to start, The Economist highlighted how important 2024 will be for democracy worldwide. The British magazine was one of the first voices to cast attention on the fact that in the next 12 months more than 70 countries will head to the polls.

As political parties hammer out their strategies for the next five months leading up to the European Parliament elections, the primary focus is shifting to the opposition as ruling New Democracy maintains an unchallenged substantial lead. 

The state's control over higher education is one of the most enduring fixations since the restoration of democracy.

The taboo has long been broken for the majority of Greek society. Attempts are now being made by the state to break the binding regime through legislation. The importance of the reform is historical.

The result of the June 25 election with the election of three far-right parties to Parliament, even if it was a product of the momentary election fatigue, showed that bans are not enough to deal with existing social discontent.

Europeans still hope that Ukraine can win the current shocking war. Many also continue to hope that democracy will be a major reason why the Ukrainians will be victorious. I believe that ancient history can help us to decide whether such hopes are reasonable or unrealistic.

"It is again confirmed that we do not know ourselves and that we take our fantasies for real," a Turkish friend wrote to me on Monday. It is difficult to feel just how much many Turks hoped that, at last, they would see an end to the slide towards greater autocracy and towards greater distance from the European Union. 

The political parties that will be taking part in Wednesday's live televised debate have set so many terms in order to appear that they have rendered a true exchange of ideas and opinions almost impossible to achieve. 

The cosmopolitan city of Melbourne in Australia, which also happens to be the capital of the Greek diaspora, is currently hosting the recreation of the Parthenon on the Acropolis as "The Temple of Boom." Australia is a beacon of democracy, and has embedded similar values and an institutional framework to those of the ancient Athenian democracy, very much like other full democracies.

"The process of dividing the world into opposing blocs is accelerating and it is now splitting into several large regions", Russian political scientist, Dmitry Drobnitsky, claims.

The United States remains committed to supporting Greece’s prosperity, security, and democracy, he wrote