Summary:
The main objective of this paper is to participate in a broader scientific debate on the enhancement of the role and function of the local government and its disengagement from state paternalism, particularly in the crucial area of social policy. Greece has shown a rather significant delay to adopt policies to strengthen local self-government, while the decentralization process during the last 40 years did not confer considerable responsibilities for social care and protection to local authorities. An expanded modern approach toward social policy and its engagement with local administration can be traced back to the early 1980s. Greece’s accession to the European Community and the need for more effective exploitation of the structural funds and implementation of EU policies, as well as new global challenges, raised issues of sustainability. These concerns led to major reforms, a territorial one in 1997 known as the ”Kapodistrias Programme” and the Holistic Reform of the “Kallicratis Plan” in 2010. The latter has reconfigured the structure, the functions and the resources of the regional and local government. Significant powers in the field of social policy were transferred to local authorities, which enabled the municipalities to play a more active and determinative role in providing social services. The local government undertakes a wide range of competences concerning social welfare, primary health and education (lifelong learning programmes, maintenance of school infrastructure). Moreover, in the aftermath of the global financial and economic crisis of 2008-2009, that emerged as a debt crisis in Greece in late 2009, the fiscal adjustment policies which have henceforth been put forward, involved drastic cuts of local government funding by the State. In this austerity context, municipalities were compelled to reorient their strategies and local actions and most important, to tackle the negative social impact of the crisis, by developing social safety nets for the vulnerable groups of the local population. The extent and results of the local response to evolving social needs constitute a relatively unchartered field and simultaneously a research challenge to indentify the operational capacity and dynamic of local authorities.
More specifically, this paper examines the evolving role of local government as an institution of social policy, especially in terms of adequacy and responsiveness to the social needs that emerged during the economic crisis. It will initially focus on the theoretical background which justifies the need for decentralized power structures in the context of public policy-making, as well as on the progress of the local administration's role in selected European countries and also historically in Greece. Secondly, the paper reviews the link between social policy and local government from the early fifties efforts to implement more effective policies until the present day. It also examines the respective situation in focus countries of the Western Europe.
Following at historical path, the reform efforts that have been undertaken in order to expand the social role of local government from the political changeover to the Kallikratis Reform, are accordingly being presented. In conclusion, the role and the reflexes of local government in the social sector during the economic crisis are investigated and evaluated through the analysis of their multiple dimensions. The Neapoli-Sykies Municipality of the Regional Unit of Thessaloniki has been selected as the case study of this paper, since it constitutes an appropriate model of local administration institution implementing active policies toward social care and protection.
Other subject categories:
Social, Political and Economic sciences
Keywords:
Local government, Kallicratis Plan, social policy, economic crisis, competences
