EPOCA

Hollowing Democracy, Party Politics and Social Protest During the ‘Great Recession’. The Case of Greece, 2008-2018

 

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The impetus behind this project came from the observation that, despite the progress made over the last couple of decades, the concerted study of institutional and contentious politics (politics as governance and politics as struggle), itself a prerequisite for the stereoscopic understanding of the political phenomenon, is still lagging. As a result, in the context of conventional politology, the “Great Recession” tends to become normalized (without theoretical appraisal of the fact that it entails projects of domination), whilst studies focusing on popular mobilizations fail to break free from the straightjacket of descriptivism (without enough attention paid to the role that political mediation plays in their evolution and outcomes). Detailed study of the Greek case (2008-2018) –characterized by both the outbreak of extensive social protest and the overhaul of the party system– can help us overcome these problems. By revisiting concepts and key theoretical debates in both fields, en route to a robust interdisciplinarity, our research, in institutional politics (a) examines the nature of the “crisis” (via assessing diverse pertinent discourses); (b) records critical junctures in the process of democratic hollowing (e.g., transformations in the balance between legislature and executive); and (c) explores the mounting crisis of representation, by paying special attention to the internal functioning of parties. As far as contentious politics is concerned, we (a) take stock of new contentious repertoires by reconstructing the concept of “radicalization;” (b) highlight the subjective dimension of protest by undertaking qualitative-ethnographic analysis of the dominant value frames (by conducting interviews employing the method of visual essaying); and (c) carries out extensive protest-event-analysis whilst focusing on the process of political mediation. Combining our findings allows us, finally, to reflect on the future of democracy in Greece and Europe. Our findings will constitute a solid data base, other researchers will also be able to use.

 

Research Team

  • Associate Prof. Seraphim Seferiades, Panteion University (Principal Investigator)
  • Donatella DellaPorta, Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence
  • Gerassimos Moschonas, Panteion University
  • Loukia Kotronaki, Postdoctoral Researcher, Panteion University
  • Konstantinos Kanellopoulos, Postdoctoral Researcher
  • Angelos Kontogiannis-Mandros, Postdoctoral Researcher
  • Iakovos Panagopoulos, Postdoctoral Researcher.
  • Konstantinos Kostopoulos, PhD candidate, Panteion University
  • Konstantinos Tsikas, PhD candidate, Panteion University
  • Evangelos Karatzis, Postgraduate student, Panteion University
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