Alliance Building in the Greek Anti-Austerity Campaign 2010-12

“ Alliance building in the Greek anti-austerity campaign 2010-12” KOSTAS KANELLOPOULOS, PhD, Panteion University, Athens KOSTAS KOSTOPOULOS, PhD candidate, Panteion University, Athens Key words: protest, networks, social movements, anti-austerity campaign Abstract Collective reactions to the Greek debt crisis and the austerity measures imposed by the Greek government in accordance with the Troika of lenders (European Central Bank, European Commission, IMF) have been widely reported by the media, but the study of contentious events and episodes has only recently started on a systematic basis (Kousis 2012, Kousis-Kanellopoulos 2012). Since the beginning of the debt crisis an impressive series of large protests and over a dozen of general strikes occurred in Greece against austerity policies. In this paper we will focus on the main organizations/groups that called and coordinated 31 large protest events from February 2010 until November 2012. Our sample includes Unions or Confederations, political parties (mostly parties of the left), Anarchist groups, students, justice oriented groups, professional organizations and Indignados, while their repertoires of contention are combinations of demonstrative, confrontational and violent protests, direct-democratic action, threats, symbolic violence or/and destruction of property. Our aim here is to examine how these very different groups managed to work together or, put otherwise, to what extend they did so. Were the differences in the organizational structure of each challenging group an obstacle to inter-organizational alliances? How threat and opportunity shaped alliance building in Greece?Trying to shed light to these questions and drawing on network analysis (Diani 2002) we have gathered data through a survey with a questionnaire and through a series of semi-structured interviews with one representative of each of the main organizations/groups that mounted the campaign. The questionnaire was distributed to the main organizers of each group. In this paper we will present the first findings of this research project.