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Neoliberalism, Austerity, and Rage Against the State: The Greek Riots of 2008

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Riots

Abstract

It was an incident occurring on the cold winter night of Saturday, 6 December 2008 which acted as the trigger for the three weeks of rioting that comprised ‘the most severe acts of civil unrest’ witnessed in Greece since the overthrow of the country’s political dictatorship in 1974. The relevant sequence of events took place within the Exarcheia quarter of central Athens, a locality which harbours coexisting populations of students (mostly enrolled at the local Athens Polytechnic) and countercultural activists, renowned for their anti-establishment sensibilities. According to Astrinaki, Exarcheia is a correspondingly tightly policed location, ‘considered the central territory of the “anti-authoritarians” [the koukouloforoi], groups of anarchists who cover their heads and faces with hoods as they carry out small-scale hit-and-run attacks against police and other state and capitalist symbols’.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Antonis Vradis, ‘Greece’s winter of discontent’, City (2009), Vol. 13, No. 1, p. 146.

  2. 2.

    Rania Astrinaki, ‘(Un)hooding’ a Rebellion: The December 2008 Events in Athens’, Social Text (2009), Vol. 27, No. 4, p, 97.

  3. 3.

    For an overview of events see David Close, ‘The riots of December 2008: their causes in historical and international contexts’, in M. Rossetto, M. Tsianikas, G. Couvalis and M. Palaktsoglou (eds.), Greek Research in Australia: Proceedings of the Eighth Biennial International Conference of Greek Studies, Flinders University, June 2009 (Adelaide, Australia: Flanders University Department of Languages, 2009), p. 134–144; and Kostas Kanellopoulos, ‘The Accidental Eruption of an Anarchist Protest’, in S. Seferiades and H. Johnston (eds.), Violent Protest, Contentious Politics and the Neoliberal State (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 171–182.

  4. 4.

    Andreas Kalyvas, ‘An Anomaly? Some Reflections on the Greek December 2008’, Constellations (2010), Vol. 17, No. 2, p. 351.

  5. 5.

    Astrinaki, ‘(Un)hooding’ a Rebellion’, p. 97.

  6. 6.

    Ibid.

  7. 7.

    Peter Bratsis, ‘Legitimation crisis and the Greek explosion’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (2010), Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 190–196; Mihalis Mentinis, ‘Remember, remember the 6th of December…A Rebellion or the Constituting of a Radical Morphoma?’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (2010), Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 197–202; Panagiotis Sotiris, ‘Reading Revolt as Deviance: Greek Intellectuals and the December 2008 Revolt of Greek Youth’, Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements (2013), Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 47–77.

  8. 8.

    Kalyvas, ‘An Anomaly?’, p. 351.

  9. 9.

    See Sotiris, ‘Reading Revolt as Deviance’.

  10. 10.

    John Karamichas, ‘The December 2008 riots in Greece’, Social Movement Studies (2009), Vol. 8, No. 3, p. 289.

  11. 11.

    Hank Johnston and Seraphim Seferiades, ‘The Greek December, 2008’, in S. Seferiades and H. Johnston (eds.), Violent Protest, Contentious Politics and the Neoliberal State (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2012), p. 150.

  12. 12.

    Ibid.

  13. 13.

    See Close, ‘The riots of December 2008’; and Savas Michael-Matsas, ‘The Greek Revolt, The World Crisis and Freedom of Expression’, Journal of Socialist Theory (2010), Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 51–59.

  14. 14.

    Michael-Matsas, ‘The Greek Revolt’, p. 55.

  15. 15.

    Ibid., p. 55–56.

  16. 16.

    Ibid.

  17. 17.

    Panagiotis Sotiris, ‘Rebels with a Cause: The December 2008 Greek Youth Movement as the Condensation of Deeper Social and Political Contradictions’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (2010), Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 204–206.

  18. 18.

    Sotiris, P., ‘Reading Revolt as Deviance, p. 64.

  19. 19.

    See Karamichas, ‘The December 2008 riots in Greece’.

  20. 20.

    Sotiris, ‘Rebels with a Cause’, p. 204.

  21. 21.

    Bratsis, ‘Legitimation crisis and the Greek explosion’, p. 194.

  22. 22.

    Sotiris, ‘Rebels with a Cause’, p. 204.

  23. 23.

    Karamichas, ‘The December 2008 riots in Greece’, p. 290.

  24. 24.

    Josephine Iakovidou, Kostas Kanellopoulos and Loukia Kotranaki, ‘The Greek uprising of December 2008’, Situations: Project of the Radical Imagination (2010), Vol. 3, No. 2, p. 148.

  25. 25.

    Johnston and Seferiades, ‘The Greek December, 2008’, p. 155.

  26. 26.

    Ibid.

  27. 27.

    Loukia Kotronaki and Seraphim Seferiades, ‘Along the Pathways of Rage: The Space-Time of an Uprising’, in S. Seferiades and H. Johnston (eds.), Violent Protest, Contentious Politics and the Neoliberal State (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2012), p. 162.

  28. 28.

    Vradis, ‘Greece’s winter of discontent’, p. 147.

  29. 29.

    Ibid.

  30. 30.

    Kotronaki and Seferiades, ‘Along the Pathways of Rage’, p. 162.

  31. 31.

    Ibid.

  32. 32.

    Bratsis, ‘Legitimation crisis and the Greek explosion’, p. 195.

  33. 33.

    See Karamichas, ‘The December 2008 riots in Greece’, p. 290.

  34. 34.

    Alkaterini Andronikidou and Iosif Kovras, ‘Cultures of rioting and anti-systemic politics in southern Europe’, West European Politics (2012), Vol. 35, No. 4, p. 713.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., p. 716.

  36. 36.

    Kotronaki and Seferiades, ‘Along the Pathways of Rage’, p. 162.

  37. 37.

    Astrinaki, ‘(Un)hooding’ a Rebellion’, p. 99.

  38. 38.

    Close, ‘The riots of December 2008’, pp. 140–141.

  39. 39.

    Iakovidou, Kanellopoulos and Kotranaki, ‘The Greek uprising of December 2008’, p. 146.

  40. 40.

    Ibid.

  41. 41.

    Close, ‘The riots of December 2008’, p. 139.

  42. 42.

    Close, ‘The riots of December 2008’, p. 140.

  43. 43.

    Charalampos Tsavdaroglou and Vasiliki Makrygianni, ‘Athens Urban Space Riot: From December 2006 Revolt to Mobilizations in the Era of Crisis’, Quaderns-E (2013), Vol. 18, No. 2, p. 33.

  44. 44.

    Ibid., p. 26.

  45. 45.

    Ibid.

  46. 46.

    Tsavdaroglou and Makrygianni, ‘Athens Urban Space Riot’, p. 27.

  47. 47.

    Kotronaki and Seferiades, ‘Along the Pathways of Rage’, p. 163.

  48. 48.

    Michael-Matsas, ‘The Greek Revolt, The World Crisis and Freedom of Expression’, pp. 57–58.

  49. 49.

    Iakovidou, Kanellopoulos and Kotranaki, ‘The Greek uprising of December 2008’, p. 146.

  50. 50.

    Michael-Matsas, ‘The Greek Revolt, The World Crisis and Freedom of Expression’, pp. 58.

  51. 51.

    Sotiris, P., ‘Reading Revolt as Deviance’, p. 65.

  52. 52.

    Iakovidou, Kanellopoulos and Kotranaki, ‘The Greek uprising of December 2008’, p. 146. See also Astrinaki, ‘(Un)hooding’ a Rebellion’; and Michael-Matsas, ‘The Greek Revolt, The World Crisis and Freedom of Expression’.

  53. 53.

    Kotronaki and Seferiades, ‘Along the Pathways of Rage’, p. 162.

  54. 54.

    Iakovidou, Kanellopoulos and Kotranaki, ‘The Greek uprising of December 2008’, p. 147.

  55. 55.

    Ibid., p. 146.

  56. 56.

    Sotiris, P., ‘Reading Revolt as Deviance’, pp. 56–57.

  57. 57.

    See Andronikidou and Kovras, ‘Cultures of rioting and anti-systemic politics in southern Europe’; and Karamichas, ‘The December 2008 riots in Greece’.

  58. 58.

    Iakovidou, Kanellopoulos and Kotranaki, ‘The Greek uprising of December 2008’, p. 146.

  59. 59.

    Close, ‘The riots of December 2008’, p. 138.

  60. 60.

    Astrinaki, ‘(Un)hooding’ a Rebellion’, p. 98.

  61. 61.

    Kotronaki and Seferiades, ‘Along the Pathways of Rage’, p. 165.

  62. 62.

    Sotiris, P., ‘Reading Revolt as Deviance’, pp. 60–61.

  63. 63.

    Kalyvas, ‘An Anomaly?’, p. 351.

  64. 64.

    Kotronaki and Seferiades, ‘Along the Pathways of Rage’, p. 163.

  65. 65.

    Ibid.

  66. 66.

    Ibid., pp. 163–164. See also Andronikidou and Kovras, ‘Cultures of rioting and anti-systemic politics in southern Europe’.

  67. 67.

    See Dimitra L. Milioni and Dionysis Panos, ‘New Media and Radical Protest: Reflections from the “Greek 2008 riots”’, International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics (2011), Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 233–240; and Kalyvas, ‘An Anomaly?’, p. 352.

  68. 68.

    See Milioni and Dionysis Panos, ‘New Media and Radical Protest: Reflections from the “Greek 2008 riots”’.

  69. 69.

    Kotronaki and Seferiades, ‘Along the Pathways of Rage’, p. 168.

  70. 70.

    Ibid.

  71. 71.

    Iakovidou, Kanellopoulos and Kotranaki, ‘The Greek uprising of December 2008’, p. 153.

  72. 72.

    Ibid.

  73. 73.

    Johnston and Seferiades, ‘The Greek December, 2008’, p. 153; and Sotiris, ‘Rebels with a Cause’, p. 207.

  74. 74.

    Iakovidou, Kanellopoulos and Kotranaki, ‘The Greek uprising of December 2008’, p. 153.

  75. 75.

    Ibid.

  76. 76.

    Ibid.

  77. 77.

    Karamichas, ‘The December 2008 riots in Greece’, p. 292; and Bratsis, ‘Legitimation crisis and the Greek explosion’, p. 195.

  78. 78.

    Karamichas, ‘The December 2008 riots in Greece’, p. 292.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. King’s College London, London, UK

    Matthew Moran

  2. Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK

    David Waddington

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Moran, M., Waddington, D. (2016). Neoliberalism, Austerity, and Rage Against the State: The Greek Riots of 2008. In: Riots. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57131-1_5

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