Trends in Social Cohesion and Trust towards European and National Institutions in Greece after 12 Years Long Financial Surveillance

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of the joint EU-IMF surveillance on Greek government spending from 2010 onwards, and the effects these have had on the country’s social cohesion and trust in political institutions. After overviewing Greece’s most recent history, the paper focuses on social and political variables aiming at tracking governmental turnover and its alignment to EU policies and budgetary constraints, hypothesizing a decrease in social cohesion and institutional trust. Social cohesion is indirectly measured through indicators about public-spending and sociological variables on which austerity measures impacted, investigating socio-economic secondary data as trend analysis. Moreover, this study takes into consideration the trends of people’s trust towards national and EU institutions, assessing the overall commitment towards the adopted measures of the 2010–2022 time frame. Nowadays, Greece shows simultaneously signals of incremented governmental stability and persisting structural suffering in welfare policies, social cohesion and institutional trust.