Far Right Parties and Policy-making in Southern Europe: An Assessment of Golden Dawn's Impact since its Entrance into Mainstream Greek Politics (2012-2016)

In 2012 a far right party, Golden Dawn, was elected for the first time in the Greek parliament and has taken a leading role in Greek turbulent political life since then. So far, we know that Golden Dawn has moderated its discourse and tactics in order to gain the electorate. It was rewarded for this choice; the 2015 legislative elections placed Golden Dawn in the third place with 6.28 percent of the vote. What still remains to research is the extent to which Greek policy-making has been influenced by Golden Dawn since it entered mainstream politics. In my previous work co-authored with Katrin Uba (in Europe-Asia Studies), we showed that far right movements can have indirect outcomes on governmental policies in non-democratic, transitional settings (Russia). Our argument was that extra-parliamentarian far right movements can cause some minimal reactions in terms of elite discourse and immigration legislation, because they engage into disruptive actions that are costly for the government. In the proposed research, I aim to apply this interdisciplinary theoretical approach that introduces sociological insights in the study of the far right in the study of the Greek case. I will assess Golden Dawn's anticipated direct and indirect impact on Greek policy-making through the construction of a database that shows Golden Dawn's mobilization and its aftermath, on the one hand, and through the study the government's agenda-setting (through the governmental discourse) and the eventual legislative changes in the field of migration, on the other. The latter is more likely to be observed in the period 2012 -2015, before left party SYRIZA stepped into power. I expect that the more large and violent the actions, the more costly they are for the government and, thus, the biggest impact they have.