Abstract
Vasilaki pierces the limiting stereotypes through which economic ‘basket case’ countries are often envisaged. In recent years, the Greek response to the crisis has been widely debated by those who have seen the Greeks, along with others in the European South (Portugal, Italy and Spain, hence the acronym PIGS), as dysfunctional and old-fashioned. In stark contrast, the chapter proposes an alternative perspective which focuses on the vibrant political activism against austerity and the rise to power of the radical left-wing political party Syriza. It concludes that Syriza’s experience demonstrates why un-systemic thinking that challenges power itself, once power is seized, is essential for future social struggles.
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Notes
- 1.
[Retrieved 12 March 2016] http://www.tovima.gr/politics/article/?aid=407156.
- 2.
Agamben 1998, 12.
- 3.
[Retrieved 12 March 2016] http://www.tanea.gr/empisteytika/?aid=4630465.
- 4.
As Harvey (2005) has been persistently arguing, neoliberalism is above all a political project of disciplining of the self to the logic of ‘the market’.
- 5.
The idea that Greece’s peculiarity vis-à-vis ‘civilised Europe’ is due to a deficiency of modernising spirit, and as such incomplete modernisation is a recurrent theme in the field of Greek studies (e.g. Diamantouros 1994; Mavrogordatos 1997). For a critique of modernisation theories employed by scholars of modern Greek history and politics, see Andriakiana (2016). For an analysis of the deployment of this explanatory scheme for the 2008 Athens riots, see Vasilaki (2017).
- 6.
A clarification about resistance is necessary here: I do not mean to idealise resistance or to see resistance as necessarily conducive to progressive politics. Besides, the Greek resistance to austerity has produced its own dark side—namely, the rise of the far-Right, xenophobia and racism—and it is not entirely disconnected with the popularisation of conspiracy theories, even in its progressive versions. For an astute analysis of the ambivalence of the Greek resistance to the crisis, see Thedossopoulos (2014a, 2014b). Foucault’s writings are indicative in bringing to the fore the ambivalent nature of power and, consequently, resistance. For an interesting discussion on the political and ethical underpinning of resistance and the distinction between liberation and freedom and the kind of politics they sustain, see Armstrong (2008), Heller (1996) and Pickett (1996).
- 7.
- 8.
‘Change’ in the particular context of 1981 was meant both as a change of regime—democratic rule was only established in Greece in 1974—and in terms of polity, institutions and culture after several years of authoritarianism and repression.
- 9.
The post-authoritarian years is a period commonly known as ‘Metapolitefsi’ (literally, political transition). Many see this period ending with the 2008 riots, others with the Greek crisis (2010) and yet others with the advent of Syriza to power in January 2015. In any case, there seems to be agreement that the era of Metapolitefsi has come to an end and Greece currently undergoes another period of transition.
- 10.
On the analysis of Fukuyama’s forecast as melancholic rather than triumphant, see Ahmad (1997).
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Vasilaki, R. (2018). Seeing Like a PIG: The Crisis in Greece as a Tale of Hope and Disillusionment. In: Geelan, T., González Hernando, M., Walsh, P. (eds) From Financial Crisis to Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70600-9_11
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