.hsp | Yale MacMillan Center European Union Studies

The Paradox of Trust in a "Low" Trust Society: Insights from the Case of Greece- Effrosyni Charitopoulou

Low levels of social trust are widely seen as an impediment to economic development and social cohesion. Trust is measured mainly via surveys: metrics are used extensively in cross-national studies and percolate back to inform societal debates. However, the way in which trust is empirically approached is subject to two problems: measurement bias and the relation between attitudes and behavior. We address both problems focusing on Greece, currently ranked as one of Europe’s least trusting societies.

A Musical Journey to Cyprus: Traditional Songs of Love, Sorrow, and Hope

Throughout history, Cyprus has been variously described as ‘the island of love’, ‘the birthplace of Aphrodite’, ‘the island of saints,’ and ‘the land of lemon and olive trees. In the past half century, Cyprus has also been known as a land of pain and sorrow; an island of division and loss. On this musical journey to Cyprus, Nicoletta Demetriou (voice), Nikitas Tampakis (viola), and Panayotis League (laouto) explore this varied identity, as expressed through the island’s music and song.

Screening: "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"

Toula Portokalos is 30, Greek American, and works in her family’s restaurant, Dancing Zorba’s, in Chicago. All her father Gus wants is for her to get married to a nice Greek boy. But Toula is looking for more in life. Her mother convinces Gus to let her take some computer classes at college (making him think it’s his idea). With those classes under her belt, she then takes over her aunt’s travel agency (again making her father think it’s his idea).

Tuning to the Seasons: Feast Songs of Cyprus- Vasiliki Hadjiadamou and Ensemble

Mention of Greek religious music more often than not conjures up liturgical music–singing to be precise, chanting, monophonic or in unison, neumes, modes, an archaic idiom and, its raison d’être, the Word of God. Parallel to liturgical music but independent from it, flourished for centuries an equally rich and long tradition of popular religious songs. Their composition, transmission, orchestration, musical and poetics meters, linguistic idiom as well as the lyrics themselves, are consonant with the Cypriot oral tradition of music and singing.

Can Shared Norms of Good Citizenship Reduce Native-Immigrant Conflict? Experimental Evidence from Greece- Nicholas Sambanis

Nicholas Sambanis joins Yale as the Kalsi Family Professor of Political Science. He previously taught at Penn (2016-2023) and Yale (2001-2016), and he worked at the World Bank Development Economics Research Group (1999-2001). Sambanis is an expert on civil wars, ethnic conflict, and the politics of migration. His writing combines theories and methods from the fields of international relations, comparative politics, and political psychology to study processes of identity formation and change and the ways that identity politics shape conflict outcomes.

Populism in Power: Discourse & Performativity in SYRIZA and Donald Trump

Populism has a complicated relationship with power and democratic institutions. Conventional wisdom assumes that populists cannot last in power; they either become mainstream or turn authoritarian. Such hypotheses are arguably rooted in systematic, anti-populist theorizations, which view populism always as a threat to democracy, connecting it with demagogy and irresponsibility and understanding it as a force that belongs to the opposition.

The War and the Fate of Ukraine's Nadazov Greeks

One of the most underreported human catastrophes of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is the ongoing cultural and existential erasure of the country’s Nadazov Greek population, which, prior to the war, constituted the third-largest ethnic group (after Ukrainians and Russians) in the bitterly contested Donetsk region. Most of these Greeks were concentrated in and around the city of Mariupol, which they founded after Catherine the Great had resettled them from their ancient homeland of Crimea in 1778.

PRFDHR Seminar: Native Bias: Overcoming Discrimination Against Immigrants, Professor Nicholas Sambanis

In the aftermath of the refugee crisis caused by conflicts in the Middle East and an increase in migration to Europe, European nations have witnessed a surge in discrimination targeted at immigrant minorities. Drawing from original surveys, survey experiments, and novel field experiments, Professor Sambanis will discuss his recent book with co-authors Donghyun Danny Choi and Mathias Poertner.

Whiteness, Not White Supremacy: Lessons Learned from the Whitening Process of Ottoman Greek Migrants

Yiorgo Topalidis is a historical sociologist whose research explores the social construction, contestation, memory and forgetting of Whiteness and its decoupling from White supremacy. He engages with these concepts through historical case studies that feature the experiences of Ottoman Greek migrants in a US context.

Greece & Classical Music: In Myth and Tradition

Greece has a strong folk music culture and a tradition of Byzantine music (Greek Orthodox church music). These styles include musical features such as tropic modes and compound rhythms, musical elements that sound ‘exotic’ to the Western-trained ear. Furthermore, the music that is often associated with Greece around the world is an early 20th-century urban popular style known as rebetika (e.g. Zorba’s dance).