Re-conceptualising the Greek Cycle of Protest: December 2008 as a Transformative Event and its Effect on the Development of Collective Action

Although the rise of collective action in Greece has been the object of ample study recently, research tends to focus on its different manifestations (i.e. the 2008 revolt, the 2011 indignant movement, or the anti-austerity protests) in isolation, paying at the same time less attention to their interrelationship. Moreover, the recurrent tendency in academia to identify the Greek crisis and the subsequent cycle of protest exclusively with the Memorandum era (2010-2015) has overemphasised the economic and downplayed the political causes of the current predicament. Keeping that in mind and drawing on ‘transformative events’ literature, this paper recognises the December 2008 revolt as a ‘turning point’ in the development of collective action in Greece, and aims to contribute to the study of the relationship between transformative events and cycles of protest. In doing so, we have the opportunity to explain how the December 2008 events, along with the economic crisis and the austerity policies that followed, critically influenced the country’s social and political arena; and to demonstrate their tactical, organisational, and discursive effects on the different forms of collective action that emerged during the protest cycle.