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About Iannis Carras

Iannis Carras is an economic and social historian of the 18th century Balkan and Russian worlds. He is active in Greek NGOs and has been a parliamentary candidate in the Athens region for the Greek Green Party.

Articles by Iannis Carras

Is Greece a racist state?

Iannis Carras 21 December 2012

Mainstream politicians have been playing a dangerous game. It remains unclear to what extent these tactics represent a conscious attempt to distract those suffering most as a result of the longterm maladministration of the country. But this constitutes only a small part of the scenario we are investigating here.

Hades and the Hegemon: Greeks face up to elections in the US

Iannis Carras 22 October 2012

Today openDemocracy launches a special global feature: How do the 2012 US elections look from here? And we launch it in Greece, Europe’s cradle of democracy and twenty-first century scandal for democracy worldwide.

The politics of suicide: Greece and Europe poised between two elections

Iannis Carras 23 May 2012

New Democracy needs strategies that cut to the bone: it has to foster fright at a surging far left, it has to force home the message that SYRIZA's positions are contradictory. The rhetoric of suicide fits this bill consummately. But it is also double edged. This is suicide season and where will it lead?

Ungoverned Democracy: Greece after the elections

Iannis Carras 7 May 2012

The results of the elections have brought an end to the post-Junta era in Greek history dominated by New Democracy and PASOK. But if this is a vote for something new, it is by no means clear what this "new" will be.

The colours of disintegration: interpreting the 2012 elections in Greece

Iannis Carras 30 April 2012

Economic depression is as ever a catalyst for change. This map of the terrain launches a series of analyses of the Greek elections and their European ripple effect, as the two parties that have dominated Greek politics since the downfall of the Junta face a “shellacking” and the far right waits in the wings

Structural funds and crocodile tears

Iannis Carras 8 January 2012
Misdirected EU aid has strengthened rent-seeking elements in the Greek economy and fostered political clientelism, writes Iannis Carras. Instead of learning from mistakes, current EU/IMF policy favours construction and privatization of state land, enabled through a legal sleight of hand. Quite apart from the environmental risks, this is counterproductive in economic terms

A farewell to the Aegean: the EU, the IMF and the destruction of an ancient sea

Iannis Carras 30 June 2011
The EU and IMF plan to 'save' Greece will result in man-made environmental devastation on an unparalleled scale. The construction industry is delighted. But is there any alternative to destroying the Aegean for good?

Iannis Carras

Iannis Carras

 

And then they began to speak with tongues. And the multitude came together, and were confounded, because every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying how is it that we hear every man in our own tongue?

Technologically engendered instant translation will transform conversation, and hence our understanding of one another. A chip in the ear, and we will comprehend on the cheap, reducing transaction costs to collective decision making… a road map for open democracy within and between societies. 

And what will have been overcome? Babel? Perhaps even human nature itself?

 

Wikipedia / Confusion of Tongues

If Greece's crisis has political roots, it will have a solution in wide-ranging institutional reform

Iannis Carras 15 December 2010
Greece isn’t working… Reforms need to turn a people that has accustomed itself to practices of excessive consumption courtesy of EU largess, into a nation of creators and producers, actively participating not only in the economic field but also in the creation of communal welfare and the preservation of Greece’s natural and cultural environment.

Orthodoxy: symbols for the new Russia

Iannis Carras
Patriarch Aleksii died on 5 December 2008. His successor, the new head of the Russian Orthodox Church, will be elected by the Church Council.  Both these events have provoked considerable discussion in the Russian press and over the internet.

This week's guest editors

openGlobalRights editors

Our guest editors James Ron, Leslie Vinjamuri, Sophie Arie and Archana Pandya introduce this week's theme of:

Emerging powers and human rights.

A Turkish Spring?

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Woolwich - terror or conflict?

Secret Courts: 8 nightmare scenarios now possible in Britain
Jo Shaw

Iran myths

Iranian presidential candidate and chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalill

Myths, falsehoods and misrepresentations about Iran
Peter Oborne and David Morrison

Palestinian borders

Palestine, peoples and borders in the new Middle East map
Ahmad Samih Khalidi

Nobel Women's Initiative

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Europe from the bottom up

European Union stars in Paris. Flickr/notarim. Some rights reserved.

A new Europe can only come from the bottom up
Etienne Balibar

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The media in Europe

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Mali: the plot thickens

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Remote control war

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oDRussia at journalismfestival .com

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