Cultures of Rioting and Anti-Systemic Politics in Southern Europe

Abstract

The article investigates why, despite similar background conditions, Greece has been the site of frequent, highly visible, fringe, anti-system politics and street riots, while similar phenomena are rare in Spain. Although the article's focal point is the eruption of the December 2008 riots in Athens, it sheds light on the two countries' diverse social reactions to the sovereign debt crisis. Deploying the tool of media framing, it argues that historical legacies and political cultures matter. In the Greek case, the transition to democracy shaped a political ‘culture of sympathy’ towards acts of resistance to the state, a culture that has been institutionalised since the mid-1970s.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Neophytos Loizides, Stefan Andreasson, Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos, Evan Liaras and Elizabeth Thompson for their comments on previous drafts of this article. We would also like to thank the WEP editorial team, and the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback.

The research project is implemented within the framework of the Action ‘Supporting Postdoctoral Researchers' of the Operational Program ‘Education and Lifelong Learning' Action's Beneficiary: General Secretariat for Research and Technology), and is co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Greek State.

Notes

1. For example, the former London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, subscribed to this reading, blaming the government's spending cuts for the 2011 London riots (Hughes 2011).