Book Chapters by Leonidas Oikonomakis
Solidarity Mobilizations in the ‘Refugee Crisis’ , 2018
This chapter focuses on the Refugee Solidarity Initiatives that evolved in Greece throughout 2015... more This chapter focuses on the Refugee Solidarity Initiatives that evolved in Greece throughout 2015–2016, which form what I call the Refugee Solidarity Movement (RSM). It consists of both new and pre-existing organisations, most of them of local character, that form a loose nationwide network. The ‘refugee crisis’ that evolved in this period can also be separated into two phases, divided by the EU–Turkey agreement, which changed the political context tremendously. Each of them had its own characteristics: the government, the movements, and the refugees and migrants had to change their strategies as a result of the changing political context. Based on ethnographic fieldwork on four islands of the North Aegean, Crete, and three main cities of Greece, I argue that the solidarity that the Greek people and the RSM showed with the moving populations was subject to a triple transition (spatial, temporal, thematic) and that it depended heavily on the changing political context.
Street politics in the age of austerity: from the Indignados to Occupy, Jul 2016
How do instances of popular protest spread across borders? This question, which has eluded socia... more How do instances of popular protest spread across borders? This question, which has eluded social scientists for decades, appears to have become more salient than ever in the wake of the mass protests that rocked the world in the wake of the Arab Spring in early 2011. In this chapter, we look at the diffusion of anti-austerity protests from Spain to Greece to the United States, focusing in particular on the claims and organizational forms behind these mobilizations. We note that, despite clear local varieties between them, the 15M movement in Spain, the Movement of the Squares in Greece, and the Occupy movement in the United States have a number of basic elements in common, most notably their critique of representation, their insistence on autonomy from political parties and the state, and their commitment to a prefijigurative politics based on horizontality, direct democracy, and self-organization. So how did this critique of representation and these alternative organizational models spread so rapidly across such widely divergent and geographically distant contexts? In approaching questions like these, social movement scholars have historically drawn on the concept of difffusion. In this chapter, we problematize some of the core assumptions behind classical difffusion theory and argue that its conceptual framework may be too linear to account for the local and transnational dimensions behind these protests. Instead of posing a clear-cut distinction between a 'transmitter' movement and an 'adopter' movement, we identify multiple sources of inspiration that simultaneously fed into each particular mobilization....
Spreading Protest Social Movements in Times of Crisis, Nov 1, 2014
Introduction: Real Democracy Now!
The years since 2011 have marked a watershed in modern history... more Introduction: Real Democracy Now!
The years since 2011 have marked a watershed in modern history. In the wake of the Arab revolutions,
a wave of popular protest washed across the globe: from the leafy squares of the Mediterranean to the
concrete heart of the global financial empire at Wall Street, and later from the Bosphorus to Brazil,
people suddenly started taking to the streets everywhere. By 15 October 2011, millions had mobilised
in over 1,000 cities in more than eighty countries to express their indignation at the subversion of
democratic processes by corrupt politicians, big banks, and powerful corporations. Following three
decades of neoliberal reform, growing inequality and decreasing state responsiveness to popular
concerns, the ongoing crisis of global capitalism appears to have thrown liberal democracy into
disarray everywhere. A deafening roar now resounds from the squares of the world. After a long
slumber, the 99% has risen, with one unifying objective: real democracy now!
Rethinking Latin American Social Movements Radical Action from Below , Nov 1, 2014
Changing the world through the state?
The question of how to deal with the state has been cent... more Changing the world through the state?
The question of how to deal with the state has been central for social movements and political philosophers preoccupied with bringing about (or blocking) social change. Theorists and revolutionaries ever since the times of the October Revolution have tried to provide
different responses to it. For Lenin and Trotsky (Lenin 1917; Trotsky 1930), during what they call “revolutionary epochs” we often notice the rise of an antagonist to state power (a
kind of “constituent power”), “a power directly based on revolutionary seizure, on the direct initiative of the people from below, and not on a law enacted by a centralised state power.” (Lenin 1917) This condition is defined as dual power1 (or dual sovereignty -dvoevlasty) and for Lenin and Trotsky it is temporary; ultimately, the rising people’s power is expected to take over the state apparatus, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat through a vanguard
Communist Party, and after an indefinite period of time dissolve the state in order to create the classless, stateless society that Karl Marx is describing as the ultimate goal of
communism. According to anarchist thought, the problem of dual power has to be resolved the other way round, with the withering away of the state and its replacement by the
autonomous, self-governing structures that will have been developed in the meantime by the people from below without the intervening ‘dictatorship of the proletariat” phase. The dictatorship of the proletariat is viewed as reproducing the same unequal power relations
differing only in regard to the fact that it is a vanguard Communist party in power this time. The Marxist-Leninist view predominated amongst revolutionary movements of the past, especially in Latin America, which -inspired by the Cuban revolution and the electoral success of Allende- tried to change the world by seizing the apparatuses of the state either through revolution or through elections.
More recently, with the coming (or return) to power of “left-wing” political parties in Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Brasil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay, and
Nicaragua) as well as with the wide resonance of movements that do not target state power (with the Zapatistas being the most prominent example) the question of the state is again
generating a great deal of heated debate amongst activists and academics. Based on the aforementioned experiences, John Holloway (2010b), Raquel Gutiérrez (2008), and Raúl
Zibechi (2012; 2010) maintain that the state is not the tool for emancipatory social change, precisely because by its nature it simply reproduces the vertical power-relations of the past.
For James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer on the other hand, controlling and restructuring the state apparatus in a revolutionary manner is the only way of bringing about social change; but it should not be done through electoral means because they sustain electoral politics is a game
designed in such a way to be a “trap for social movements” (2009) leading to their bureaucratization and institutionalization. George Ciccariello-Maher, in a recent book on the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela (2013), argues in favor of a dual power that exists in a tense and antagonistic relation with the state, which in its own turn enters a process of
gradually self-dissolving itself from above and with its own initiative until it becomes a “nonstate”.
Venezuelan activist Roland Denis maintains however that the Bolivarian revolution,
contrary to its radical rhetoric, has become a “sustained petite-bourgeoisie in a massive
popular mobilisation supporting the revolution, but totally contrary to the demand for power
de-concentration, transparency and the people’s movement’s direct participation in public
power” (Denis 2014) and has reinforced rather than dissolved state power. When it comes to
the contemporary Bolivian case, it seems that what the country’s Vice president Álvaro
García Linera at least is advocating for, is a kind of dual power of a less temporary character
under which the state appartus is subordinated to the movements that brought the MAS to
power (Rockefeller 2007, 174) and socialism is deferred for the distant future, perhaps in 50
or 100 years (García Linera 2014). In the meantime, the “dual power situation” in which
Bolivia has found itself has to reach its “bifurcation point that consolidates a new political
system or re-establishes the old one (a combination of parliamentary forces, alliances, and
changing government procedures) and reconstitutes the symbolic order of state power (the
ideas that guide social life)” (García Linera 2010,36). Additionally, García Linera argues in a
Gramscian logic that it is the “indigenous-popular pole” that “should consolidate its
hegemony, providing intellectual and moral leadership of the country’s social majorities
(García Linera 2006).”
This chapter will contribute to this discussion. Examining the relationship of Bolivia’s MAS
with the movements that brought it to state power, as well as the participation of people with
a social movement background in Evo Morales’ different cabinets, we argue that –at least in
the Bolivian case- in this peculiar dual power situation it is actually the movements that are
being subordinated to the state and not the other way round as the country’s Vicepresident is
claiming.
In addition, during the cycle of protest of 2000-2005 that eventually brought the
MAS to power, the protagonists of the mobilizations, the “multitude” as Álvaro García
Linera refers to it, using Hardt and Negri’s term, had practically rejected both representative
democracy as a governing system, and the ‘party’ as a form of organization. And it did so
both in rhetoric and in practice, through the horizontal, assemblyist, direct democracy and
communitarian organizational practices it adopted during the Water and Gas Wars of
Cochabamba and El Alto. Even the cocaleros of Chapare who had a more trade union type of
organization, with a centralized predominantly male leadership (Farthing and Kohl 2010,
199), used to self-govern themselves through a form of radical democracy “in which all
members of the community meet to debate, decide, and enact their laws.” (Grisaffi 2013, 3)
All those radical democratic experiences seem to have been replaced by the vertical and at
times authoritarian structures and processes of the government, while the ‘party’ has returned
as the main agent of change in Bolivia, replacing the movements and the peoples, as it has
also happened in other ‘pink tide’ experiences as Zibechi (2012) has analyzed.
This cahier is a result of the research project 'Faith-based organizations and social exclusion i... more This cahier is a result of the research project 'Faith-based organizations and social exclusion in European cities' (FACIT). The consortium exists of eight academic partners in seven countries. This publication is part of a series of cahiers per country, produced by the FACIT-consortium. The series contain the following volumes:
Journal Articles by Leonidas Oikonomakis
Tribuna Abierta de Estudios Hispano-Helenos Τεύχος Ε´/ Νúmero V, 2023
Τα τελευταία χρόνια, στην παγκόσμια ακαδημαϊκή παραγωγή γνώσης, έχουν έλθει στο προσκήνιο προσεγγ... more Τα τελευταία χρόνια, στην παγκόσμια ακαδημαϊκή παραγωγή γνώσης, έχουν έλθει στο προσκήνιο προσεγγίσεις από τον Παγκόσμιο Νότο, που αμφισβητούν την ευρω-αμερικανική, «δυτική» πρόσληψη της κοινωνικής και οικολογικής πραγματικότητας. Ο Boaventura de Sousa Santos μιλά για «Επιστημολογίες του Νότου» (Santos 2016) και, δι' αυτών, για την απόδοση «γνωσιακής δικαιοσύνης». Όπως αναφέρει και ο Κ. Δουζίνας, «οι Επιστημολογίες του Νότου δεν αποτελούν επιστημολογία με τη συμβατική έννοια του όρου. Δεν αποσκοπούν στη μελέτη της γνώσης και των πεποιθήσεων, αλλά επιδιώκουν να προσδιορίσουν και να αξιοποιήσουν γνώσεις ή πρακτικές που αποσιωπώνται από τη δυτική επιστημολογία και αποτελούν μέρος των αγώνων ενάντια σ' αυτή την καταπίεση» (Δουζίνας 2022). Μία απ' αυτές τις «επιστημολογίες» στις οποίες αναφέρεται ο de Sousa Santos είναι και το buen vivir, το οποίο στην Ευρώπη συνήθως ερμηνεύουμε ως ένα τρόπο αρμονικής συνύπαρξης με τη φύση γύρω μας (και με άλλους τρόπους που αναλύονται παρακάτω). Σε αυτό το άρθρο, και χρησιμοποιώντας την έννοια της “κοσμοπολιτικής/cosmopolitics” της Marisol de la Cadena(De La Cadena 2010) και της Stengers (2010,2011) υποστηρίζω οτι πέρα απο τις επιστημολογίες του Παγκόσμιου Νότου, θα πρέπει να μιλάμε και για Κοσμοπολιτικές του Παγκόσμιου Νότου, οι οποίες αμφισβητούν και τις επικρατούσες πολιτικές που επιβάλλονται απο τον Παγκόσμιο Βορρά με τρόπο άμεσο. Μια απο αυτές είναι και το buen vivir. Ως παραδειγματική περίπτωση τέτοιων κοσμοπολιτικών, θα αναφερθώ στο buen vivir στα πλαίσια της Ζώσας Ζούγκλας, όπως αυτή γίνετα κατανοητή στην Αμαζονία του Εκουαδόρ. Το άρθρο βασίζεται σε πολύμηνη εθνογραφική έρευνα του γράφοντος στην κοινότητα Σαραγιάκου (Sarayaku).
Boletìn Onteaiken, 2019
Introducción –teatralizada-
Escena numero I
El
Chapare, Bolivia. 2013. Entrevistando a dirigentes... more Introducción –teatralizada-
Escena numero I
El
Chapare, Bolivia. 2013. Entrevistando a dirigentes cocaleros en torno a sus
estrategias políticas para mi investigación de doctorado, me sorprendieron:
“Viendo el Zapatismo decíamos: ¿Por qué no acá en Bolivia?” 2
Escena numero II
Atenas, Grecia. 2014. En plena crisis financiera, política, y social, empiezan a
formarse colectivos y cooperativas de economía social y solidaria. En primer lugar, para
auto-producir trabajo para sus miembros y así sacarlos del enorme desempleo que existía
en el país en ese entonces. En segundo lugar, para experimentar con nuevas formas de
organización económica de tipo colectivo y anti-capitalista. Tuve la oportunidad de
participar y rapear en un evento organizado por esas cooperativas y recuerdo todavía su
discurso: “Νos inspiramos en la lucha Zapatista...”
Escena numero III
San Cristóbal de las Casas, México. 2015. La casa de voluntarios de Junax llena de
activistas de todo el mundo -tanto jóvenes como no tan jóvenes- que habían viajado hasta
allí para asistir a la lucha Zapatista en calidad de observadores/as de derechos humanos,
y para aprender de ella. Mexican@s, Argentin@s, Alemenes y Alemanas, Italian@s,
Grieg@s, Nicaraguenses, Εspañoles y Españolas, Vasc@s y Catalanes/as, tod@s llevados
por la influencia del Zapatismo y su gran resonancia.
Armed movements are usually analyzed in the context of ongoing conflict, and much of the precedin... more Armed movements are usually analyzed in the context of ongoing conflict, and much of the preceding mobilization and recruitment is often given far less attention. In this article, we assert that this period can be of critical relevance to subsequent movement trajectories. Analysis of the period antecedent to insurgency also facilitates a deeper contextualization of movement actors and their environments. We examine the period of preconflict mobilization for PKK and the FLN/EZLN, two movements of comparable interest due to their successful urban-to-rural transitions. We contend that the establishment of cross-class, locally based constituencies in both cases was critical to their consolidation as armed movements. We discuss the cases in relation to three main parameters: their immediate social environment, the role of the state, and the strategies adopted by the respective movements. Scholars of political violence could legitimately question the importance of focusing on periods of preconflict mobilization, in which violence is limited and contention is less extensive than in the ensuing years. Heretofore, the founding generations of armed movements have been conceptualized in various ways. Distinctions have been drawn between founders and followers (Moyano 1992), and between initiators and spin-off movements (McAdam 1995), while the differing qualities of early mobilizers and their militant trajectories have also been analyzed extensively (Bosi 2007, 2012; Bosi and della Porta 2012; Viterna 2006, 2013). Activists in earlier phases mobilize differently than those in subsequent stages, who are conditioned by a series of factors that are endogenous to the conflict. Tarrow (2011: 167) has explained that pioneering early risers " can expose opponents' points of weakness that may not be evident until they have been challenged. " Early risers are also crucial because they set in motion mechanisms of " fear-abatement, " which facilitate subsequent mobilization (Johnston 2014: 37-39). Preconflict mobilization therefore occurs in the context of ambiguous constraints and opportunities, which have often become clarified by the time subsequent recruits become involved. Furthermore, it is a period when armed groups are most vulnerable to repression due to their inexperience, small size, and limited support and logistic networks (O'Connor 2014). Weinstein (2007: 7) suggests that subsequent " differences in how rebel groups employ violence are a consequence of variation in the initial conditions that leaders confront, " and are therefore of central relevance to the development of insurgent movements. Although it is wise to remain wary of overly rigid deterministic approaches, certain structural features put in place prior to the outbreak of open hostilities often prove enduring. For instance, the consol-_______________________________ * The authors would like to sincerely thank the following for their very kind help at various stages in the development of this article:
Conference Papers by Leonidas Oikonomakis
Ever since 2011, the world has been shaken by a global cycle of protest that also reached several... more Ever since 2011, the world has been shaken by a global cycle of protest that also reached several countries of the Balkans, including Greece, Turkey and Bosnia Herzegovina. While each of these countries experienced important single-issue protests, the movement of the Squares in Greece and the Occupy Gezi movement in Turkey managed to culminate into broad-based mass
mobilizations that subsequently challenged the legitimacy of representative democratic institutions at their very core, formulating alternative practices of direct democracy to prefigure different forms of autonomous selforganization. In Bosnia Herzegovina (hereinafter BiH), by contrast, a protest over the failure of the political system to solve a deadlock in the disbursement of national ID numbers, although inspiring massive mobilization and lasting
more than a month, failed to make the scale-shift (Tarrow and McAdam 2003) and formulate such a systemic critique of representation. Why did the movements in Greece and Turkey take off while the one in BiH did not?
First, we argue that while the Greek movement of the Squares and the çapulcular (looters) of Turkey managed to successfully connect their single issue protest over austerity and Gezi Park, respectively, to the structural context of a deepening crisis of representation, the Bosnian #JMBG movement failed to articulate a clear narrative connecting the political deadlock over national ID numbers to the failure of the post-Dayton political system to adequately respond to important salient popular concerns. Secondly, we observe that while both Greece and Turkey could count on extensive local horizontal movement experience and pre-existing activist
networks capable of formulating such a critique of representation, in the Bosnian case such networks and experience appeared largely absent, resulting in a reduced potential for sustained nationwide mobilization surrounding the question of democracy. Therefore, building on the concept of resonance (Oikonomakis and Roos 2013), we claim that the different outcome of the Bosnian case can be attributed to the absence of two critical conditions, namely strong movement networks and horizontal movement experience.
In sum, we argue that, even though the movements in Greece, Turkey and BiH were all faced with a crisis of representation, of which the austerity measures, the destruction of Gezi Park and the failure to disburse national ID numbers were but specific symptoms, the Bosnian movement ultimately did not see “the forest through the trees”, and as a result failed to light the prairie of social discontent. For single-issue protests to evolve into resonant
mass movements, they ultimately have to confront the structural context in which they arise.
Our paper is based on extensive participant observation (56 out of 72 popular assemblies at Syntagma Square), interviews with key-informants in Athens and Sarajevo, and in-depth analysis of the minutes of the Popular Assemblies of Syntagma Square.
Essays & Opinions by Leonidas Oikonomakis
ROAR Magazine, 2019
Back in 2005, Evo Morales, then still a poor coca grower, set off on his journey from the Chapare... more Back in 2005, Evo Morales, then still a poor coca grower, set off on his journey from the Chapare — a lush region in central Bolivia known to the Incas as Ancha Para, or the “place where it rains a lot” — to the “Burnt Palace,” as Bolivia’s government palace is popularly known since it was almost completely burned down during a popular uprising in 1875. Last weekend, he found himself back in the Chapare once again, seeking refuge after being ousted in a military-backed coup following weeks of opposition protests. He has since fled the country and taken up asylum in Mexico.
The fall of Evo Morales marks the end of an era for Bolivia — and for Latin America as a whole. Morales’ rise to power in the early 2000s was part of a broader wave of social movement organizing and popular mobilization that eventually led to the election of progressive and social-democratic governments in Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela.
Finally, the Greek people will be able to say a dignified ‘NO!’ to austerity. We owe it to those ... more Finally, the Greek people will be able to say a dignified ‘NO!’ to austerity. We owe it to those who suffered, those who migrated — and those who died.
The rise of Syriza and Podemos closely mirrors the experience of the Latin American left. Can gra... more The rise of Syriza and Podemos closely mirrors the experience of the Latin American left. Can grassroots movements in Europe avoid the same pitfalls?
Αριστερή Ανατροπή (τεύχος 3)
Η δολοφονία του Παύλου από τους νεοναζί της Χρυσής Αυγής με βρήκε εκτός Ελλάδος. Τις πρώτες στιγμ... more Η δολοφονία του Παύλου από τους νεοναζί της Χρυσής Αυγής με βρήκε εκτός Ελλάδος. Τις πρώτες στιγμές, προσπαθώντας να μάθω τι γίνεται από τα social media διαπίστωσα ότι οι πρώτες φωτογραφίες που μέσα στον πανικό κυκλοφόρησαν ήταν…δικές μας με το όνομα του Παύλου λεζάντα, από την αντιφασιστική συναυλία της 19ης Γενάρη 2013 στο Σύνταγμα μετά τη δολοφονία του 27χρονου Σεχζάτ Λουκμάν.
«Εντάξει, ακούσανε ράπερ, με αντιφασιστική δράση, θα μας είχαν δει και στο Σύνταγμα, και νομίζανε ότι ήταν κάποιος από μας» σκέφτηκα χωρίς να δώσω πολύ σημασία – η σκέψη μου ήταν στον Παύλο.
Μετά, παγωμάρα και σιωπή. Στον κόσμο, στην Ελλάδα, στη χιπ χοπ κοινότητα, και στο μυαλό μου. Πέρασαν οι μέρες, προσπάθησα να σκεφτώ τα πράγματα λίγο πιο καθαρά και να βρω μια άκρη, αλλά δε μπόρεσα να διώξω εκείνη τη σκέψη:
«Κι όμως, θα μπορούσε να ήμασταν εμείς».
Ή κάποιος άλλος από την χιπ χοπ κοινότητα αυτού του γεωγραφικού χώρου που λέμε Ελλάδα.
Γιατί; Γιατί το χιπ χοπ και η Χρυσή Αυγή «παίζουν μπάλα στο ίδιο ταλαιπωρημένο χωράφι» όπως έγραψε πρόσφατα σε ένα του άρθρο ο Σταύρος Μαλιχούδης αναφερόμενος στων ανταγωνισμό των δυο αυτών αντιθέτων κόσμων στα σχολεία. Ο Πρύτανης του ΑΠΘ Γιάννης Μυλόπουλος πάλι, σε άρθρο του στην Εφημερίδα των Συντακτών επισημαίνει με τη σειρά του ότι η Χρυσή Αυγή μπορεί να έχει δηλητηριάσει μεγάλο μέρος της ελληνικής κοινωνίας, όμως στα Πανεπιστήμια απέτυχε να διεισδύσει. Η εξήγηση που δίνει ο Πρύτανης έχει να κάνει με τη σημασία της Παιδείας, η οποία αποτελεί ανάχωμα για τις ιδέες του μίσους που πρεσβεύει το κόμμα των νεοναζί.
Ίσως.
ROAR Magazine, Dec 21, 2014
They don’t say “how are you?” Instead, they prefer to ask “what does your heart say?” If you are ... more They don’t say “how are you?” Instead, they prefer to ask “what does your heart say?” If you are well, you respond “jun ko’on” (my heart is united). If not, you have to respond that your heart is in pieces (“chkat ko’on“). And you have to be honest.
The verb “to struggle” does not exist in their language. Instead, they use the phrase “to form the word.” If one wants to understand the Zapatista struggle, it is important that first you understand their language.
ROAR Magazine, Jul 25, 2014
ROAR Magazine, Feb 13, 2014
ROAR Magazine, Jan 1, 2014
January 1st 1994.
Presidential Palace, Mexico City.
The New Year’s Eve party is over and Pr... more January 1st 1994.
Presidential Palace, Mexico City.
The New Year’s Eve party is over and President Carlos Salinas de Gortari has gone to bed happy, knowing that towards the end of his presidency Mexico is now entering the First World. With the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) entering into effect with the new year, Mexico, Canada and the United States of America would now establish a “free trade zone” under which goods and services (but not people — who cares about people after all?) would now be moving freely between those three countries.
Of course that would also mean the full exposure of Mexican small-scale agricultural producers to unfair competition by the North American multinationals that were producing more cheaply and in larger quantities, but then again, who cares about those peasants — and do they still exist? First World, as we said…
However, Carlos Salinas de Gortari was not meant to sleep long that night...
Uploads
Book Chapters by Leonidas Oikonomakis
The years since 2011 have marked a watershed in modern history. In the wake of the Arab revolutions,
a wave of popular protest washed across the globe: from the leafy squares of the Mediterranean to the
concrete heart of the global financial empire at Wall Street, and later from the Bosphorus to Brazil,
people suddenly started taking to the streets everywhere. By 15 October 2011, millions had mobilised
in over 1,000 cities in more than eighty countries to express their indignation at the subversion of
democratic processes by corrupt politicians, big banks, and powerful corporations. Following three
decades of neoliberal reform, growing inequality and decreasing state responsiveness to popular
concerns, the ongoing crisis of global capitalism appears to have thrown liberal democracy into
disarray everywhere. A deafening roar now resounds from the squares of the world. After a long
slumber, the 99% has risen, with one unifying objective: real democracy now!
The question of how to deal with the state has been central for social movements and political philosophers preoccupied with bringing about (or blocking) social change. Theorists and revolutionaries ever since the times of the October Revolution have tried to provide
different responses to it. For Lenin and Trotsky (Lenin 1917; Trotsky 1930), during what they call “revolutionary epochs” we often notice the rise of an antagonist to state power (a
kind of “constituent power”), “a power directly based on revolutionary seizure, on the direct initiative of the people from below, and not on a law enacted by a centralised state power.” (Lenin 1917) This condition is defined as dual power1 (or dual sovereignty -dvoevlasty) and for Lenin and Trotsky it is temporary; ultimately, the rising people’s power is expected to take over the state apparatus, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat through a vanguard
Communist Party, and after an indefinite period of time dissolve the state in order to create the classless, stateless society that Karl Marx is describing as the ultimate goal of
communism. According to anarchist thought, the problem of dual power has to be resolved the other way round, with the withering away of the state and its replacement by the
autonomous, self-governing structures that will have been developed in the meantime by the people from below without the intervening ‘dictatorship of the proletariat” phase. The dictatorship of the proletariat is viewed as reproducing the same unequal power relations
differing only in regard to the fact that it is a vanguard Communist party in power this time. The Marxist-Leninist view predominated amongst revolutionary movements of the past, especially in Latin America, which -inspired by the Cuban revolution and the electoral success of Allende- tried to change the world by seizing the apparatuses of the state either through revolution or through elections.
More recently, with the coming (or return) to power of “left-wing” political parties in Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Brasil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay, and
Nicaragua) as well as with the wide resonance of movements that do not target state power (with the Zapatistas being the most prominent example) the question of the state is again
generating a great deal of heated debate amongst activists and academics. Based on the aforementioned experiences, John Holloway (2010b), Raquel Gutiérrez (2008), and Raúl
Zibechi (2012; 2010) maintain that the state is not the tool for emancipatory social change, precisely because by its nature it simply reproduces the vertical power-relations of the past.
For James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer on the other hand, controlling and restructuring the state apparatus in a revolutionary manner is the only way of bringing about social change; but it should not be done through electoral means because they sustain electoral politics is a game
designed in such a way to be a “trap for social movements” (2009) leading to their bureaucratization and institutionalization. George Ciccariello-Maher, in a recent book on the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela (2013), argues in favor of a dual power that exists in a tense and antagonistic relation with the state, which in its own turn enters a process of
gradually self-dissolving itself from above and with its own initiative until it becomes a “nonstate”.
Venezuelan activist Roland Denis maintains however that the Bolivarian revolution,
contrary to its radical rhetoric, has become a “sustained petite-bourgeoisie in a massive
popular mobilisation supporting the revolution, but totally contrary to the demand for power
de-concentration, transparency and the people’s movement’s direct participation in public
power” (Denis 2014) and has reinforced rather than dissolved state power. When it comes to
the contemporary Bolivian case, it seems that what the country’s Vice president Álvaro
García Linera at least is advocating for, is a kind of dual power of a less temporary character
under which the state appartus is subordinated to the movements that brought the MAS to
power (Rockefeller 2007, 174) and socialism is deferred for the distant future, perhaps in 50
or 100 years (García Linera 2014). In the meantime, the “dual power situation” in which
Bolivia has found itself has to reach its “bifurcation point that consolidates a new political
system or re-establishes the old one (a combination of parliamentary forces, alliances, and
changing government procedures) and reconstitutes the symbolic order of state power (the
ideas that guide social life)” (García Linera 2010,36). Additionally, García Linera argues in a
Gramscian logic that it is the “indigenous-popular pole” that “should consolidate its
hegemony, providing intellectual and moral leadership of the country’s social majorities
(García Linera 2006).”
This chapter will contribute to this discussion. Examining the relationship of Bolivia’s MAS
with the movements that brought it to state power, as well as the participation of people with
a social movement background in Evo Morales’ different cabinets, we argue that –at least in
the Bolivian case- in this peculiar dual power situation it is actually the movements that are
being subordinated to the state and not the other way round as the country’s Vicepresident is
claiming.
In addition, during the cycle of protest of 2000-2005 that eventually brought the
MAS to power, the protagonists of the mobilizations, the “multitude” as Álvaro García
Linera refers to it, using Hardt and Negri’s term, had practically rejected both representative
democracy as a governing system, and the ‘party’ as a form of organization. And it did so
both in rhetoric and in practice, through the horizontal, assemblyist, direct democracy and
communitarian organizational practices it adopted during the Water and Gas Wars of
Cochabamba and El Alto. Even the cocaleros of Chapare who had a more trade union type of
organization, with a centralized predominantly male leadership (Farthing and Kohl 2010,
199), used to self-govern themselves through a form of radical democracy “in which all
members of the community meet to debate, decide, and enact their laws.” (Grisaffi 2013, 3)
All those radical democratic experiences seem to have been replaced by the vertical and at
times authoritarian structures and processes of the government, while the ‘party’ has returned
as the main agent of change in Bolivia, replacing the movements and the peoples, as it has
also happened in other ‘pink tide’ experiences as Zibechi (2012) has analyzed.
Journal Articles by Leonidas Oikonomakis
Escena numero I
El
Chapare, Bolivia. 2013. Entrevistando a dirigentes cocaleros en torno a sus
estrategias políticas para mi investigación de doctorado, me sorprendieron:
“Viendo el Zapatismo decíamos: ¿Por qué no acá en Bolivia?” 2
Escena numero II
Atenas, Grecia. 2014. En plena crisis financiera, política, y social, empiezan a
formarse colectivos y cooperativas de economía social y solidaria. En primer lugar, para
auto-producir trabajo para sus miembros y así sacarlos del enorme desempleo que existía
en el país en ese entonces. En segundo lugar, para experimentar con nuevas formas de
organización económica de tipo colectivo y anti-capitalista. Tuve la oportunidad de
participar y rapear en un evento organizado por esas cooperativas y recuerdo todavía su
discurso: “Νos inspiramos en la lucha Zapatista...”
Escena numero III
San Cristóbal de las Casas, México. 2015. La casa de voluntarios de Junax llena de
activistas de todo el mundo -tanto jóvenes como no tan jóvenes- que habían viajado hasta
allí para asistir a la lucha Zapatista en calidad de observadores/as de derechos humanos,
y para aprender de ella. Mexican@s, Argentin@s, Alemenes y Alemanas, Italian@s,
Grieg@s, Nicaraguenses, Εspañoles y Españolas, Vasc@s y Catalanes/as, tod@s llevados
por la influencia del Zapatismo y su gran resonancia.
Conference Papers by Leonidas Oikonomakis
mobilizations that subsequently challenged the legitimacy of representative democratic institutions at their very core, formulating alternative practices of direct democracy to prefigure different forms of autonomous selforganization. In Bosnia Herzegovina (hereinafter BiH), by contrast, a protest over the failure of the political system to solve a deadlock in the disbursement of national ID numbers, although inspiring massive mobilization and lasting
more than a month, failed to make the scale-shift (Tarrow and McAdam 2003) and formulate such a systemic critique of representation. Why did the movements in Greece and Turkey take off while the one in BiH did not?
First, we argue that while the Greek movement of the Squares and the çapulcular (looters) of Turkey managed to successfully connect their single issue protest over austerity and Gezi Park, respectively, to the structural context of a deepening crisis of representation, the Bosnian #JMBG movement failed to articulate a clear narrative connecting the political deadlock over national ID numbers to the failure of the post-Dayton political system to adequately respond to important salient popular concerns. Secondly, we observe that while both Greece and Turkey could count on extensive local horizontal movement experience and pre-existing activist
networks capable of formulating such a critique of representation, in the Bosnian case such networks and experience appeared largely absent, resulting in a reduced potential for sustained nationwide mobilization surrounding the question of democracy. Therefore, building on the concept of resonance (Oikonomakis and Roos 2013), we claim that the different outcome of the Bosnian case can be attributed to the absence of two critical conditions, namely strong movement networks and horizontal movement experience.
In sum, we argue that, even though the movements in Greece, Turkey and BiH were all faced with a crisis of representation, of which the austerity measures, the destruction of Gezi Park and the failure to disburse national ID numbers were but specific symptoms, the Bosnian movement ultimately did not see “the forest through the trees”, and as a result failed to light the prairie of social discontent. For single-issue protests to evolve into resonant
mass movements, they ultimately have to confront the structural context in which they arise.
Our paper is based on extensive participant observation (56 out of 72 popular assemblies at Syntagma Square), interviews with key-informants in Athens and Sarajevo, and in-depth analysis of the minutes of the Popular Assemblies of Syntagma Square.
Essays & Opinions by Leonidas Oikonomakis
The fall of Evo Morales marks the end of an era for Bolivia — and for Latin America as a whole. Morales’ rise to power in the early 2000s was part of a broader wave of social movement organizing and popular mobilization that eventually led to the election of progressive and social-democratic governments in Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela.
«Εντάξει, ακούσανε ράπερ, με αντιφασιστική δράση, θα μας είχαν δει και στο Σύνταγμα, και νομίζανε ότι ήταν κάποιος από μας» σκέφτηκα χωρίς να δώσω πολύ σημασία – η σκέψη μου ήταν στον Παύλο.
Μετά, παγωμάρα και σιωπή. Στον κόσμο, στην Ελλάδα, στη χιπ χοπ κοινότητα, και στο μυαλό μου. Πέρασαν οι μέρες, προσπάθησα να σκεφτώ τα πράγματα λίγο πιο καθαρά και να βρω μια άκρη, αλλά δε μπόρεσα να διώξω εκείνη τη σκέψη:
«Κι όμως, θα μπορούσε να ήμασταν εμείς».
Ή κάποιος άλλος από την χιπ χοπ κοινότητα αυτού του γεωγραφικού χώρου που λέμε Ελλάδα.
Γιατί; Γιατί το χιπ χοπ και η Χρυσή Αυγή «παίζουν μπάλα στο ίδιο ταλαιπωρημένο χωράφι» όπως έγραψε πρόσφατα σε ένα του άρθρο ο Σταύρος Μαλιχούδης αναφερόμενος στων ανταγωνισμό των δυο αυτών αντιθέτων κόσμων στα σχολεία. Ο Πρύτανης του ΑΠΘ Γιάννης Μυλόπουλος πάλι, σε άρθρο του στην Εφημερίδα των Συντακτών επισημαίνει με τη σειρά του ότι η Χρυσή Αυγή μπορεί να έχει δηλητηριάσει μεγάλο μέρος της ελληνικής κοινωνίας, όμως στα Πανεπιστήμια απέτυχε να διεισδύσει. Η εξήγηση που δίνει ο Πρύτανης έχει να κάνει με τη σημασία της Παιδείας, η οποία αποτελεί ανάχωμα για τις ιδέες του μίσους που πρεσβεύει το κόμμα των νεοναζί.
Ίσως.
The verb “to struggle” does not exist in their language. Instead, they use the phrase “to form the word.” If one wants to understand the Zapatista struggle, it is important that first you understand their language.
Presidential Palace, Mexico City.
The New Year’s Eve party is over and President Carlos Salinas de Gortari has gone to bed happy, knowing that towards the end of his presidency Mexico is now entering the First World. With the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) entering into effect with the new year, Mexico, Canada and the United States of America would now establish a “free trade zone” under which goods and services (but not people — who cares about people after all?) would now be moving freely between those three countries.
Of course that would also mean the full exposure of Mexican small-scale agricultural producers to unfair competition by the North American multinationals that were producing more cheaply and in larger quantities, but then again, who cares about those peasants — and do they still exist? First World, as we said…
However, Carlos Salinas de Gortari was not meant to sleep long that night...
The years since 2011 have marked a watershed in modern history. In the wake of the Arab revolutions,
a wave of popular protest washed across the globe: from the leafy squares of the Mediterranean to the
concrete heart of the global financial empire at Wall Street, and later from the Bosphorus to Brazil,
people suddenly started taking to the streets everywhere. By 15 October 2011, millions had mobilised
in over 1,000 cities in more than eighty countries to express their indignation at the subversion of
democratic processes by corrupt politicians, big banks, and powerful corporations. Following three
decades of neoliberal reform, growing inequality and decreasing state responsiveness to popular
concerns, the ongoing crisis of global capitalism appears to have thrown liberal democracy into
disarray everywhere. A deafening roar now resounds from the squares of the world. After a long
slumber, the 99% has risen, with one unifying objective: real democracy now!
The question of how to deal with the state has been central for social movements and political philosophers preoccupied with bringing about (or blocking) social change. Theorists and revolutionaries ever since the times of the October Revolution have tried to provide
different responses to it. For Lenin and Trotsky (Lenin 1917; Trotsky 1930), during what they call “revolutionary epochs” we often notice the rise of an antagonist to state power (a
kind of “constituent power”), “a power directly based on revolutionary seizure, on the direct initiative of the people from below, and not on a law enacted by a centralised state power.” (Lenin 1917) This condition is defined as dual power1 (or dual sovereignty -dvoevlasty) and for Lenin and Trotsky it is temporary; ultimately, the rising people’s power is expected to take over the state apparatus, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat through a vanguard
Communist Party, and after an indefinite period of time dissolve the state in order to create the classless, stateless society that Karl Marx is describing as the ultimate goal of
communism. According to anarchist thought, the problem of dual power has to be resolved the other way round, with the withering away of the state and its replacement by the
autonomous, self-governing structures that will have been developed in the meantime by the people from below without the intervening ‘dictatorship of the proletariat” phase. The dictatorship of the proletariat is viewed as reproducing the same unequal power relations
differing only in regard to the fact that it is a vanguard Communist party in power this time. The Marxist-Leninist view predominated amongst revolutionary movements of the past, especially in Latin America, which -inspired by the Cuban revolution and the electoral success of Allende- tried to change the world by seizing the apparatuses of the state either through revolution or through elections.
More recently, with the coming (or return) to power of “left-wing” political parties in Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Brasil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay, and
Nicaragua) as well as with the wide resonance of movements that do not target state power (with the Zapatistas being the most prominent example) the question of the state is again
generating a great deal of heated debate amongst activists and academics. Based on the aforementioned experiences, John Holloway (2010b), Raquel Gutiérrez (2008), and Raúl
Zibechi (2012; 2010) maintain that the state is not the tool for emancipatory social change, precisely because by its nature it simply reproduces the vertical power-relations of the past.
For James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer on the other hand, controlling and restructuring the state apparatus in a revolutionary manner is the only way of bringing about social change; but it should not be done through electoral means because they sustain electoral politics is a game
designed in such a way to be a “trap for social movements” (2009) leading to their bureaucratization and institutionalization. George Ciccariello-Maher, in a recent book on the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela (2013), argues in favor of a dual power that exists in a tense and antagonistic relation with the state, which in its own turn enters a process of
gradually self-dissolving itself from above and with its own initiative until it becomes a “nonstate”.
Venezuelan activist Roland Denis maintains however that the Bolivarian revolution,
contrary to its radical rhetoric, has become a “sustained petite-bourgeoisie in a massive
popular mobilisation supporting the revolution, but totally contrary to the demand for power
de-concentration, transparency and the people’s movement’s direct participation in public
power” (Denis 2014) and has reinforced rather than dissolved state power. When it comes to
the contemporary Bolivian case, it seems that what the country’s Vice president Álvaro
García Linera at least is advocating for, is a kind of dual power of a less temporary character
under which the state appartus is subordinated to the movements that brought the MAS to
power (Rockefeller 2007, 174) and socialism is deferred for the distant future, perhaps in 50
or 100 years (García Linera 2014). In the meantime, the “dual power situation” in which
Bolivia has found itself has to reach its “bifurcation point that consolidates a new political
system or re-establishes the old one (a combination of parliamentary forces, alliances, and
changing government procedures) and reconstitutes the symbolic order of state power (the
ideas that guide social life)” (García Linera 2010,36). Additionally, García Linera argues in a
Gramscian logic that it is the “indigenous-popular pole” that “should consolidate its
hegemony, providing intellectual and moral leadership of the country’s social majorities
(García Linera 2006).”
This chapter will contribute to this discussion. Examining the relationship of Bolivia’s MAS
with the movements that brought it to state power, as well as the participation of people with
a social movement background in Evo Morales’ different cabinets, we argue that –at least in
the Bolivian case- in this peculiar dual power situation it is actually the movements that are
being subordinated to the state and not the other way round as the country’s Vicepresident is
claiming.
In addition, during the cycle of protest of 2000-2005 that eventually brought the
MAS to power, the protagonists of the mobilizations, the “multitude” as Álvaro García
Linera refers to it, using Hardt and Negri’s term, had practically rejected both representative
democracy as a governing system, and the ‘party’ as a form of organization. And it did so
both in rhetoric and in practice, through the horizontal, assemblyist, direct democracy and
communitarian organizational practices it adopted during the Water and Gas Wars of
Cochabamba and El Alto. Even the cocaleros of Chapare who had a more trade union type of
organization, with a centralized predominantly male leadership (Farthing and Kohl 2010,
199), used to self-govern themselves through a form of radical democracy “in which all
members of the community meet to debate, decide, and enact their laws.” (Grisaffi 2013, 3)
All those radical democratic experiences seem to have been replaced by the vertical and at
times authoritarian structures and processes of the government, while the ‘party’ has returned
as the main agent of change in Bolivia, replacing the movements and the peoples, as it has
also happened in other ‘pink tide’ experiences as Zibechi (2012) has analyzed.
Escena numero I
El
Chapare, Bolivia. 2013. Entrevistando a dirigentes cocaleros en torno a sus
estrategias políticas para mi investigación de doctorado, me sorprendieron:
“Viendo el Zapatismo decíamos: ¿Por qué no acá en Bolivia?” 2
Escena numero II
Atenas, Grecia. 2014. En plena crisis financiera, política, y social, empiezan a
formarse colectivos y cooperativas de economía social y solidaria. En primer lugar, para
auto-producir trabajo para sus miembros y así sacarlos del enorme desempleo que existía
en el país en ese entonces. En segundo lugar, para experimentar con nuevas formas de
organización económica de tipo colectivo y anti-capitalista. Tuve la oportunidad de
participar y rapear en un evento organizado por esas cooperativas y recuerdo todavía su
discurso: “Νos inspiramos en la lucha Zapatista...”
Escena numero III
San Cristóbal de las Casas, México. 2015. La casa de voluntarios de Junax llena de
activistas de todo el mundo -tanto jóvenes como no tan jóvenes- que habían viajado hasta
allí para asistir a la lucha Zapatista en calidad de observadores/as de derechos humanos,
y para aprender de ella. Mexican@s, Argentin@s, Alemenes y Alemanas, Italian@s,
Grieg@s, Nicaraguenses, Εspañoles y Españolas, Vasc@s y Catalanes/as, tod@s llevados
por la influencia del Zapatismo y su gran resonancia.
mobilizations that subsequently challenged the legitimacy of representative democratic institutions at their very core, formulating alternative practices of direct democracy to prefigure different forms of autonomous selforganization. In Bosnia Herzegovina (hereinafter BiH), by contrast, a protest over the failure of the political system to solve a deadlock in the disbursement of national ID numbers, although inspiring massive mobilization and lasting
more than a month, failed to make the scale-shift (Tarrow and McAdam 2003) and formulate such a systemic critique of representation. Why did the movements in Greece and Turkey take off while the one in BiH did not?
First, we argue that while the Greek movement of the Squares and the çapulcular (looters) of Turkey managed to successfully connect their single issue protest over austerity and Gezi Park, respectively, to the structural context of a deepening crisis of representation, the Bosnian #JMBG movement failed to articulate a clear narrative connecting the political deadlock over national ID numbers to the failure of the post-Dayton political system to adequately respond to important salient popular concerns. Secondly, we observe that while both Greece and Turkey could count on extensive local horizontal movement experience and pre-existing activist
networks capable of formulating such a critique of representation, in the Bosnian case such networks and experience appeared largely absent, resulting in a reduced potential for sustained nationwide mobilization surrounding the question of democracy. Therefore, building on the concept of resonance (Oikonomakis and Roos 2013), we claim that the different outcome of the Bosnian case can be attributed to the absence of two critical conditions, namely strong movement networks and horizontal movement experience.
In sum, we argue that, even though the movements in Greece, Turkey and BiH were all faced with a crisis of representation, of which the austerity measures, the destruction of Gezi Park and the failure to disburse national ID numbers were but specific symptoms, the Bosnian movement ultimately did not see “the forest through the trees”, and as a result failed to light the prairie of social discontent. For single-issue protests to evolve into resonant
mass movements, they ultimately have to confront the structural context in which they arise.
Our paper is based on extensive participant observation (56 out of 72 popular assemblies at Syntagma Square), interviews with key-informants in Athens and Sarajevo, and in-depth analysis of the minutes of the Popular Assemblies of Syntagma Square.
The fall of Evo Morales marks the end of an era for Bolivia — and for Latin America as a whole. Morales’ rise to power in the early 2000s was part of a broader wave of social movement organizing and popular mobilization that eventually led to the election of progressive and social-democratic governments in Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela.
«Εντάξει, ακούσανε ράπερ, με αντιφασιστική δράση, θα μας είχαν δει και στο Σύνταγμα, και νομίζανε ότι ήταν κάποιος από μας» σκέφτηκα χωρίς να δώσω πολύ σημασία – η σκέψη μου ήταν στον Παύλο.
Μετά, παγωμάρα και σιωπή. Στον κόσμο, στην Ελλάδα, στη χιπ χοπ κοινότητα, και στο μυαλό μου. Πέρασαν οι μέρες, προσπάθησα να σκεφτώ τα πράγματα λίγο πιο καθαρά και να βρω μια άκρη, αλλά δε μπόρεσα να διώξω εκείνη τη σκέψη:
«Κι όμως, θα μπορούσε να ήμασταν εμείς».
Ή κάποιος άλλος από την χιπ χοπ κοινότητα αυτού του γεωγραφικού χώρου που λέμε Ελλάδα.
Γιατί; Γιατί το χιπ χοπ και η Χρυσή Αυγή «παίζουν μπάλα στο ίδιο ταλαιπωρημένο χωράφι» όπως έγραψε πρόσφατα σε ένα του άρθρο ο Σταύρος Μαλιχούδης αναφερόμενος στων ανταγωνισμό των δυο αυτών αντιθέτων κόσμων στα σχολεία. Ο Πρύτανης του ΑΠΘ Γιάννης Μυλόπουλος πάλι, σε άρθρο του στην Εφημερίδα των Συντακτών επισημαίνει με τη σειρά του ότι η Χρυσή Αυγή μπορεί να έχει δηλητηριάσει μεγάλο μέρος της ελληνικής κοινωνίας, όμως στα Πανεπιστήμια απέτυχε να διεισδύσει. Η εξήγηση που δίνει ο Πρύτανης έχει να κάνει με τη σημασία της Παιδείας, η οποία αποτελεί ανάχωμα για τις ιδέες του μίσους που πρεσβεύει το κόμμα των νεοναζί.
Ίσως.
The verb “to struggle” does not exist in their language. Instead, they use the phrase “to form the word.” If one wants to understand the Zapatista struggle, it is important that first you understand their language.
Presidential Palace, Mexico City.
The New Year’s Eve party is over and President Carlos Salinas de Gortari has gone to bed happy, knowing that towards the end of his presidency Mexico is now entering the First World. With the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) entering into effect with the new year, Mexico, Canada and the United States of America would now establish a “free trade zone” under which goods and services (but not people — who cares about people after all?) would now be moving freely between those three countries.
Of course that would also mean the full exposure of Mexican small-scale agricultural producers to unfair competition by the North American multinationals that were producing more cheaply and in larger quantities, but then again, who cares about those peasants — and do they still exist? First World, as we said…
However, Carlos Salinas de Gortari was not meant to sleep long that night...
The recent protests in Turkey seem to have started when the neoliberal, urban regeneration project of the conservative Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) wanted to destroy one of the last remaining green spaces in Istanbul to create a mall within a reconstructed Ottoman barracks. Other similar contentious issues that outraged Istanbulites included the naming of the third bridge over the Bosphorus after an Ottoman Sultan that the Alevi (a religious group in Turkey combining Shi’ism with Sufi elements) consider a slaughterer, and the destruction of one of Istanbul’s most historic cinemas to create yet another mall.
But be careful not to miss the forest."
Α ΜΕΡΟΣ
ΕΙΣΑΓΩΓΗ: Η ελληνική κρίση και η κοινωνική διαμαρτυρία (Νίκος Σερντεδάκις και Σταύρος Τομπάζος)
ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 1: Οι δύο όψεις της ελληνικής οικονομίας, 2000-2017 (Σταύρος Τομπάζος)
ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 2: Οι εργασιακές σχέσεις στη δίνη της «νέας οικονομικής διακυβέρνησης της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης» (Χριστίνα Καρακιουλάφη)
ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 3: Μετασχηματισμοί στο κομματικό σύστημα και τη συλλογική δράση την περίοδο της κρίσης: Η πορεία του Σύριζα (2010-2015) (Χαρά Κούκη)
ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 4: Από τον δρόμο στο Κοινοβούλιο: Οι τοπογραφίες της διαμαρτυρίας και ο ΣΥΡΙΖΑ στα χρόνια της κρίσης, 2009-2015 (Λουκία Κοτρωνάκη)
ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 5: Κόμματα και κινήματα χωρίς την πολιτική; Το μοντέλο του «κόμματος καρτέλ» υπό το φως της εμπειρίας ΣΥΡΙΖΑ (Μάκης Σεφεριάδης)
ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 6: Το «εξεγερμένο» 2011: Από την πλατεία Ταχρίρ στο Occupy Wall Street (Ιωσηφίνα Ιακωβίδου)
ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 7: Από τη λατινοαμερικανική ροζ παλίρροια μέχρι τη Μεσόγειο: Οι επιπτώσεις των εκλογών στις ριζοσπαστικές πολιτικές διαδικασίες (Λεωνίδας Οικονομάκης)
Β ΜΕΡΟΣ
ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 8: Η διαμαρτυρία στην Ελλάδα της κρίσης, 2009-2014 (Νίκος Σερντεδάκις)
ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 9: Οι Αγανακτισμένοι των πλατειών: Η σημασία του εξαιρετικού γεγονότος στη διαμόρφωση του κύκλου διαμαρτυρίας (Νίκος Σούζας & Χρίστος Ηλιόπουλος)
ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 10: Εργατικές αντιστάσεις: Από τη Χαλυβουργία στα σωματεία βάσης (Μάρκος Βογιατζόγλου)
ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 11: Οι κινητοποιήσεις των δημοσίων υπαλλήλων, 2009-2014: Πρωταγωνιστική παρουσία, αμυντική στόχευση (Δημήτρης Παπανικολόπουλος & Βασίλης Ρόγγας)
ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 12: Οι αγροτικές κινητοποιήσεις της περιόδου 2010-2016 στο πλαίσιο των δομικών, χρόνιων και νέων προβλημάτων του πρωτογενούς τομέα (Βαγγέλης Νικολαΐδης & Μυρσίνη Κουφίδη)
ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 13: Κερατέα και Χαλκιδική: Διαστάσεις περιβαλλοντικής δικαιοσύνης (Τάσος Χοβαρδάς & Ιωσήφ Μποτετζάγιας)
ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 14: Κοινωνική αλληλέγγυα οικονομία, κρίση και κοινωνικά κινήματα (Κάρολος Καβουλάκος)
ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 15: Κριτική της μαρξιστικής κριτικής στην αλληλέγγυα οικονομία (Μιχάλης Ψημίτης)
ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 16: Η ελληνική ακροδεξιά και η ανάπτυξη των αντιρατσιστικών και αντιφασιστικών δράσεων στην περίοδο της κρίσης (Κώστας Κωστόπουλος και Κώστας Κανελλόπουλος)
exemplary countries of South America (Argentina and Bolivia) and Southern
Europe (Greece and Spain), all with long-standing traditions of political
graffiti during turbulent times. From the Second World War era to the recent
decades, all these countries have experience civilian and military rebellions,Walls of Resistance in Critical Times | 75
dramatic political upheavals, social tensions and significant crises that have
led to the de-alignment of political systems. Despite the differences in terms
of political setting and the forms of visual protest, what is common among
these countries is the use of street art and graffiti as an aesthetically affective
tool of communication by multiple political actors in efforts to mobilize
popular support and make their voices heard. In this sense, these countries
constitute a fertile ground for scholarly investigation into infrapolitical forms
of expression and visual protest in struggles over authority and recognition
during periods of social tension. Drawing from existing literature on political graffiti and selective fieldwork material, we offer an empirically grounded
understanding of graffiti activism used by emerging social movements in
these countries.