Κράτος και κοινωνία πολιτών οτην Ελλάδα. Μια σχέση προς επανεξέταση;

Abstract

This article argues that the “overgrown and inefficient State - weak civil society” stereotype which reflects the overwhelmingly prevailing interpretation of the “Greek case” in Political Sociology has to be reconsidered. Neither civil society was or is so weak nor the State was or is so inefficient as this stereotype suggests. At the beginning, the article reviews the origins of the stereotype in the post-dictatorship period, as well as the theoretical and political context in which it was formed. Subsequently, it outlines the manner in which the concepts of State and of Civil Society are discussed by social scientists today.  Particular emphasis is given to the civil society debate taking place in Greece. The author clearly distances himself from the current theoretical and analytical uses of the civil society concept and proposes an alternative approach based on a Gramscian perspective. Furthermore, the article reviews recent findings of the Historical Political Sociology (particularly those of the so called state-society perspective) regarding the role of the State in socioeconomic development. The article’s conclusion is that the prevailing interpretation of the relation between state and civil society in modern Greece has to be reconsidered.