Alternative Action Organizations in the Eurozone crisis period: Comparing the Greek and German experience

Alternative Forms of Resilience appear in hard economic times, allowing citizens to meet increasing needs, or fostering alternative participatory initiatives. They do so through alternative actions of formal and informal organizations (AAOs). This paper aims to compare these collective resilience initiatives and practices in contrasting settings, Greece and Germany during the Eurozone crisis period, in order to unravel whether and to what extent AAOs in the two countries diverge and converge in terms of the socio-political profile, their actions and practices, their beneficiaries, the type of rights and needs they address, and the values under which they act. Furthermore, the Paper illustrates differences between the two countries in the personal experience of the participants (organizers and beneficiaries) in AAOs. In Greece, the austerity measures imposed during the Eurozone crisis led to a rapid increase in solidarity actions, such as barter networks, food banks, free medical services, soup kitchens, new cooperatives, social economy enterprises, free legal advice etc., which were organized by thousands of new Alternative Action Organizations (AAOs). In Germany, these initiatives are expected to be older, more formal and addressing different types of beneficiaries (e.g. migrants, refugees, vulnerable populations). The Paper builds on a mixed method approach and fresh empirical data. The quantitative method applied is Alternative Action Organization Analysis (AAOA), an innovative content analysis approach deriving from protest event and political claims analysis, which has been created for the needs of the EC FP7 research project “LIVEWHAT — LIVING WITH HARD TIMES*, How Citizens React to Economic Crises and Their Social and Political Consequences” (WP6, Alternative Forms of Resilience). We add to this approach with qualitative analysis of in depth interviews conducted with organizers and beneficiaries in both countries. This will allow us to shed light on perceptions, meanings and experiences where we expect to also find similarities in both countries. http://www.livewhat.unige.ch/