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Why Greeks rebel: Re-examining conventional and radical political action

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Abstract

Recent years have witnessed a rise of contentious political activity across the world heralding what some perceive as a new major cycle of protest. Much attention has focused on Europe, where the economic crisis generated considerable social unrest deemed comparable to earlier waves of protest. This article seeks to examine the basic constituents of the social forces unleashed by this economic crisis and to assess the main motivations driving this new cycle of protest. It distinguishes between conventional and radical political activity and seeks to identify the main correlates of each. The article uses an original telephone survey designed, piloted, and conducted in Greece (n = 5025) to construct a 12-item conventionalism scale and a 10-item radicalism scale. Using psychometric techniques, it assesses the effects of various independent variables on the two modes of political action. The article finds that, even in this economic crisis-hit setting, economic deprivation has a minimal effect on the two modes of behavior. Ideology, especially on the left of the political spectrum, has the strongest effect on both radical and conventional political action. Despite the major changes in the political context brought about by the economic crisis, political action displays significant continuity with the past.

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Acknowledgments

Both authors contributed equally to this article and name ordering reflects the principle of rotation. They would like to thank Mary Beth Altier, David Art, Lenka Bustikova, Georgios Karyotis, Iannis Konstantinidis, Irene Martín Cortés, José Ramón Montero, Wolfgang Rüdig, Nikos Trimikliniotis and the anonymous reviewers and editors of Acta Politica for comments on earlier drafts. They would also like to thank Public Issue for the data collection; the Research Institute of the University of Macedonia for help with piloting the survey; the Faculty of Economics and Management of the University of Cyprus for access to CNTS Data Archive; and Charis Kaite for research assistance. Previous versions of the paper were presented at the American and Cyprus associations of political science (APSA and CAPS) as well as the Autonomous University of Madrid, the University of Cyprus and the University of Macedonia. The research undertaken for the purposes of this article was generously provided by a start-up grant of the University of Cyprus.

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  1. University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Iasonas Lamprianou & Antonis A. Ellinas

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  1. Iasonas Lamprianou
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Correspondence to Antonis A. Ellinas.

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Lamprianou, I., Ellinas, A.A. Why Greeks rebel: Re-examining conventional and radical political action. Acta Polit 52, 85–109 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-016-0003-3

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