The Legacy of the ‘Squares’: Popular Mobilizations and the Unfolding of the Organic Crisis

In the course of the last years the Greek crisis has been a focal point of attention mainly as to its economic implications for Eurozone’s stability and the structural deficiencies of the European project as such. Its actual importance though lies to its organic character. Under the catalytic impact of popular mobilization against the austerity policies, the crisis of representation long gestated at the basis of the traditional bipartisan system mutated to a legitimacy crisis of the political system per se. There occurred in other words a rare intersection of an economic, political and ideological crisis that went far deeper than a mere transformation of the party system as in the case of Spain, Portugal and Ireland. Countries that were affected by the Eurozone crisis but didn’t experience a hegemonic crisis in the Gramscian sense. In this context the present paper aims to address two main issues: a) what was the role played by the 2010-2012 cycle of contention in the emergence of the organic crisis and b) how the dynamics that emerged in its course helped shape the process of restructuration of the Greek party system. Our analysis is based on a mixed method approach combining quantitative (i.e. survey findings) and qualitative (i.e. interviews) data and primarily focuses on the impact and dynamic of the so-called “squares’ movement” that consisted the epicentre of the cycle of contention and the climax of popular mobilization for the entire period of the crisis. Subsequent political developments such as SYRIZA’s rise to power and the 2015 referendum are in our opinion inscribed within the framework set and shaped by the “squares” and the organic crisis that the latter helped instigate. Hence, to understand the ideological and political transformations produced in the movement’s course is the necessary basis not only for the understanding of the organic character of the Greek crisis but also of the depth and the characteristics of the dynamics currently shaping Greek politics. In this regard and in line with the two research axes outlined above we place great emphasis on issues such as the examination of the movement’s impact on people’s attitudes towards democracy, the party system, modernization as a political project, the E.U and the E.M.U.