In the early 1990s, Nikiforos Diamandouros – academic, Ombudsman of Greece (1998 - 2003) and Ombudsman for the European Union (2003 - 2013) – referred to a "cultural dualism" that was deeply entrenched in post-1974 (post-dictatorship) Greece as "a tug of war between an ‘underdog’ and a modernizing political culture". 

This has since been disseminated to political discourse and has become a reference point for understanding modern Greece and the country's relation with Europe; the question arising is whether the Greek crisis is the precursor of a systemic crisis of the neoliberal capitalism model (as the now Finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos has systematically claimed) or whether the Greek crisis is largely due to the inability of Greek elites as well as the reform (in)capacity of the Greek state.

Two decades later and in the midst of euro-crisis, Anna Triandafyllidou, Ruby Gropas, and Hara Kouki, as editors of the seminal "The Greek Crisis and European Modernity" (Palgrave, 2013) explore similar questions. By critically reviewing the path to modernization that Greece has taken, the book uses Greece to illustrate and exemplify the contradictions of the dominant paradigm of European modernity with its inherent ruptures, and the alternative modernity discourses that develop within Europe.

Contributions include an illuminating introduction (Is Greece a Modern European Country?) and chapters on The Orthodox Church in Greece (Stavros Zoumboulakis), Welfare State in Greece (Manos Matsaganis), European Currency Union and the Euro Crisis (Loukas Tsoukalis), "Memoranda" and Greek Exceptionalism (George Katrougalos), The Crisis in Greece in Its Global Context (Yanis Varoufakis) as well as a post-script on Cultural Dualism (Nikiforos Diamandouros).

Related publications: The Greek Paradox: Promise Vs. Performance (1997); European Crisis Discourses: the case of Greece (2014); Reforming Greece: Sisyphean task or Herculean challenge? (2012); Modern Greek Exceptionalism (2007)