Anti-austerity Protest and Democratic Vision: The struggle for a new politics – the case of the Greek ‘Do Not Pay’ social movement.

Abstract

The twenty-first century witnessed the emergence of an unprecedented series of protests around the world. The global wave of post-2010 activisms illuminates how depoliticization, civic disaffection and the rise of individualism go in tandem with the struggle for people’s social and economic rights and the crisis of legitimacy of representative democracy. Looking at the case of the anti-austerity Greek social movement ‘We Do Not Pay’ Movement (To kinima den plirono), this project seeks to examine whether and how the protestors attempt to define their political presence and identity by exercising a new form of politics that responds to the challenges of a post-ideological world. In order to answer our main research objective, we explore the following issues: the message of the movement and the tactics used to mobilize the people that support it; whether the movement has allegiances to particular civil society groups and other partisan groups nationally and globally; how the protestors respond to austerity policies and ideologies at the national level and beyond; and whether the movement has been inspired by other social movements. To achieve such research aims, we have employed a qualitative approach by conducting semi-directive interviews with key members of the movement, including those involved in setting up and maintaining the movement’s online presence in the web page (http://www.kinimadenplirono.gr/) and Twitter and Facebook accounts.