Dr Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos is associate professor of political science at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration of the University of Athens and Senior Research Fellow of the think-tank ELIAMEP, based in Athens. Dr Sotiropoulos has studied law, sociology and political science in Athens, London and New Haven, CT (Yale Ph.D. 1991). His publications include the volumes Is South-Eastern Europe Doomed to Instability? (co-edited with Thanos Veremis), London: Frank Cass, 2002 and Democracy and the State in the New Southern Europe (co-edited with Richard Gunther and P. Nikiforos Diamandouros), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. In 2003 he was Senior Research Fellow at the Hellenic Observatory of the LSE and in 2009-2010 Visiting Fellow in South East European Studies at the Centre for European Studies, St. Antony’s College, Oxford. He has also published articles on democratisation, civil society, public administration and social policy in Greece, Southern Europe and the Balkans in international journals (European Journal of Social Policy, Social Policy and Administration, West European Politics, South European Society and Politics, Europe-Asia Studies, South East European and Black Sea Studies).