Abstract
In recent years Greece has faced a terrible economic crisis that became social, political and humanitarian and challenged its relationship with the European Union. In this paper, through a survey research with an opportunity sample of Greek people (N = 739) of different ages and professions, we investigate whether participants’ image of the relationship between Greece and the EU relates to their agreement with a) harsh austerity and decrease of national sovereignty, b) decrease of the public sector and c) Grexit measures. We hypothesized and observed that this relationship is mediated by beliefs about norms of justice and beliefs of individual mobility and relative position. In particular, a positive relationship between Greece and EU predicts agreement with harsh austerity and decrease of the public sector through justice beliefs of equity whereas the relationship with Grexit is not mediated by beliefs about norms of justice. In addition, perceiving the GR-EU relationship as a relationship of domination predicts the different measures through feelings of personal or relational relative position. Legitimation of a relationship of domination and acceptance of harsh measures is observed the less people feel relatively deprived personally in comparison to their past position or in comparison to others, whereas this relationship with Grexit is observed the more relative relational deprivation is felt. These results highlight that perception of asymmetric relationships and status (at an individual or group level) between the national group and the EU and distribution of resources should be taken into account when discussing measures to combat the crisis.
Highlights
In recent years Greece has faced a terrible economic crisis that became social, political and humanitarian and challenged its relationship with the European Union
After controlling for its reliability a new variable was computed averaging the scores of the above-named items and was called “Conforming to EU requests” since it depicts the submission to the dominant regulations imposed by the EU, IMF and European Central Bank
The third factor included the items “Leaving the Eurozone voluntarily” (.830) and “Refuse to pay the debt” (.798) which represent the Grexit rationale (r = . 42) as a conflictual and extreme response to the economic crisis and its management imposed by the dominant international forces
Summary
In recent years Greece has faced a terrible economic crisis that became social, political and humanitarian and challenged its relationship with the European Union. From a parallel mediation analysis conducted using ordinary least squares path analysis, positive perception of Greece-EU relationship indirectly predicted intentions to prefer a conforming (in accordance with the prevailing tendency that authority has created) response to the economic crisis through its effect on the agreement with the norm of equity.
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