The Three Waves of Anti-Austerity Protest in Greece, 2010-2015

The apparent ubiquity of protest in recent years and the rise of Occupy movements across the world fuelled claims about a new style of mobilisation emerging that is markedly different from previous social movements. Analysing a series of original survey data, this article engages with this debate by providing a panoramic account of how the anti-austerity movement evolved in Greece and comparing the drivers of protest in each distinct protest wave. Contrary to expectations, the rise of the Greek version of the Indignados during 2011 did not decisively transform the anti-austerity movement, which still mainly displayed characteristics typically associated with ‘old’ social movements. However, elements of the ‘new social movements’ approach featured more prominently in the later stage of protest, after mid-2012. Crucially, the model developed to study protest in non-electoral arenas also performs well to explain the success of SYRIZA in the electoral arena, highlighting the links between protest participation and party politics that merit further investigation.