The literature has portrayed a number of images of Greek foreign policy processes and structures, with the latter largely defined as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and its overseas network of diplomatic representation viewed in the light of different independent variables and sources. All images appear to have a common denominator: namely, that Greek foreign policy structures and processes present a number of characteristics and weaknesses stemming from their operation in their external and domestic environments.. The various accounts of the Greek foreign policy-making structures and processes generally suggest centralisation of policy- making at the level of political leadership, process politicisation, lack of macroscopic policy planning and weak institutional structures. The main images of the Greek FPS in the respective literature are presented in more detail below.
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Anomic groups are mobs, acting through non-organised rioting and demonstration, highly
changeable in structure and working and representing spontaneous breakthroughs of social groups into the political system.
81 Couloumbis (1983) portrays the structures managing Greece’s world entanglements using a number of variables ranging from participation in international organisations to defence equipment imports. Statistical data gathered from this research indicated that Greek foreign policy structures follow neither the typical paradigm of small states, nor the paradigms of Eastern, Western or Balkan states. Rather they generate more fundamental questions relating to the very nature of the Greek foreign policy machinery and, more specifically, questions of whether it is a developed, transitional or developing system. What Couloumbis suggests as an underlying premise is that Greece and its foreign policy structures have suffered, and are still suffering, from a protracted identity crisis (Couloumbis, 1983: 95).
Couloumbis (1983) observed in the early 1980s a significant lack of institutionalised policy planning as well as short-termism in policy-making. At the same time he identified foreign policy formulation as a function conceived by the cabinet and carried out by diplomats and the MFA (Couloumbis, 1983: 111). Similar short-termism was observed in the work of the MFA, whose input has often been replaced by agents outside the diplomatic service. The author observed that the main core the foreign policy-making machinery at the political level were the Prime Minister (PM,) the Foreign Minister (FM), and the Ministry of Defence (MoD), with the former two emerging as the single overwhelmingly influential locus of decision making authority.
The MFA and its overseas diplomatic network held a central position in foreign policy implementation but the latter’s input into policy formulation was minimal. Equally limited was the military input into foreign policy formulation especially post- 1974 (Couloumbis, 1983: 113) whereas the need for a widened foreign policy community in Greece was already identified in the early 1980s. A widened foreign policy community was perceived as ‘consisting of opinion makers involved in
foreign affairs such as members of parliament, employees of government agencies and personalities drawn from the media’ (Couloumbis, 1983: 111). The issue of a
82 policy machinery, namely the MFA and its diplomatic network, involving other parts of the government has not been addressed in the Greek literature and constitutes the main focus of the following chapter.
Couloumbis’s account also delves into the character of the Greek diplomatic service in the early 1980s and asserts that, despite its centrality in the foreign policy process, its role as a source of policy is very limited and restricted to implementing policy made by the MFA’s political leadership (Ioakimidis, 1999; 145; Couloumbis, 1983: 108). Couloumbis (1983: 107-109) argues and Ioakimidis (1999: 145) confirms in the late 1990s, that not only did Greek diplomatic staff rarely submit alternative strategic policy scenarios to the political leadership of the ministry but they also never questioned the chosen policy courses. More specifically the profile of Greek diplomats at that time is described as
‘Pro-western with a strong sense of loyalty verging on fear to superiors;
having a tendency to avoid taking initiative; a tendency to follow instructions and carry out assigned (from above) missions; a self- perception of being realistic, informed and non-political technocratic advisors to the political authorities; a proclivity to bend without much resistance to the political will of those in power; a feeling of comfort with routines; a sense of discretion, if not secretiveness, often without discrimination between sensitive or trivial information; a predisposition to consider the press irresponsible and journalists […]as untrustworthy; a general reticence in giving frequent and systematic briefings to members of parliament and especially members of opposition parties’
(Couloumbis, 1983: 108-109).
The author (Couloumbis, 1983: 110) argues that based on empirical evidence, foreign policy structures until at least the early 1980s were characterised as rigid and hierarchical which in conjunction with heavy disincentives against initiatives and debates between superiors and subordinates, cultivated highly malleable
83 personalities in the service that subconsciously extended their intra-ministry obedience patterns to their relationships with external centres of authority.
Couloumbis (1983: 116) attributes the aforementioned image to the long tradition of foreign power penetration into Greek domestic politics, a detailed discussion of which is provided in later sections. Foreign power penetration was manifested dramatically by the formation of the first political parties in the newly established Greek state bearing formal names such as the ‘French’, the ‘English’ and the ‘Russian’. For much of the nineteenth century, Greece was treated as a protectorate, with its local elites and party factions seeking external support and in return promoting the protectors’ interests thus creating polarised structures.
In the twentieth century polarisation was even more acute. Civil conflict, foreign intervention and manipulation became the norm. In the interwar and 1950-74 periods, military coups and intervention into domestic politics were seen as both the cause and effect of foreign intervention. Similarly, the monarch appointed by the foreign powers was also considered as a cause and effect of foreign intervention. Couloumbis (1983: 116) depicts the interdependence of domestic and external politics in terms of a set of mutually reinforcing relationships.
Figure 2.1 Couloumbis's (1983:116) triangular scheme of interdependence between domestic and external politics External Dependence Foreign Intervention Political Polarisation
84 More than a decade later Makridimitris and Stoforopoulos (1997) provided a snapshot of the Greek FPS, which they define as a set of organisational structures and processes with the MFA at its core. The authors describe the FPS as characterised by limited strategic policy planning and analysis capacity, a low level of strategic planning and orientation, systemic analysis and assessment and a high level of concern with bureaucratic procedure. For these reasons, the Greek FPS is described as lagging behind other similar systems of foreign policy (Makridimitris and Stoforopoulos, 1997: 32-34):
Moreover, the FPS is described as demonstrating all those characteristics that typify the general pathology of Greek bureaucracy namely, fragmentation and politicisation (Makridimitris and Stoforopoulos, 1997: 47). On the basis of this analysis, Makridimitris and Stoforopoulos (1997) suggest that the contemporary pressures exercised by the international environment, necessitate the optimisation of the Greek FPS as well as the redefinition of the role and the re-structuring of the MFA and of the diplomatic service. Chapters four and five explore those issues, namely the role and structure of the Greek MFA and its overseas services in the context of the changing policy environments.
With an added emphasis on the foreign policy process, Kavakas (2000) provides an account which addresses the nature of the process and the kinds of considerations that dominate it. According to the author (2000:150) the main characteristic of the foreign policy area in Greece is that it has been used by governments to claim success and national victories for electoral purposes. An important aspect of the policy process is that it has been separated into two distinct areas. The first has been concerned with all issues that do not affect Greek interests directly, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict or Iraq. The second has involved issues of primary national importance such as Turkey, Cyprus and the Balkans. This second area comprises the so-called ‘national issues’ [ethnika themata] which dominate the foreign policy agenda and marginalise other issues of international significance.
85 The naming and categorisation of foreign policy processes into distinct areas has a considerable impact on the way these issues have been viewed and managed. More specifically, Greece has securitised its foreign policy by putting forward ‘national issues’. ‘Securitisation’ means that the specific issues are removed from any kind of party political debate and the policy process is insulated from other policies as well as from other extra-governmental agents. Instead, such issues become of high national priority, and, therefore, party disagreement is out of the question whilst management on behalf of the government takes place behind closed doors. In this manner foreign policy becomes nationalistic, politicised and ‘securitised’ with the political leadership securing independence in its management and excluding a bureaucratic input.
With the two strands of policy considerations dominating the foreign policy agenda, until very recently ‘low policy’ areas, such as the environment or humanitarian aid were neglected (Sotiropoulos, 2001). According to an official of the MFA’s General Directorate for Development (DG YDAS) (Interview, no 13) it has only been in the past five years that Greek foreign policy makers discovered that issues such as climate change form part of the category of ‘security issues’ and are addressed as a foreign policy consideration in the MFA. Such realisations about the changing nature of foreign policy by Greek foreign policy makers have opened up the policy process to new actors, such as NGOs, which have only recently started to enter policy-making in a more organised fashion. The involvement of such actors under the aegis of the MFA is further discussed in chapter four. The next section presents a model of Greek foreign policy-making conceptualised by Ioakimidis (1999; 2003) the value of which for the understanding of foreign policy structures is very significant.
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