Anti-Party, Anti-Parliamentary or Anti-Democratic Social Movements? The Outraged Citizens of Greece.

Transcription

1 Anti-Party, Anti-Parliamentary or Anti-Democratic Social Movements? The Outraged Citizens of Greece. Author: Vassiliki Georgiadou, Associate Professor of Political Science, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens/Greece, Co-authors: Anastasia Kafe, PhD candidate, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens/Greece, Constantinos Pierides, PhD candidate, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens/Greece, WORK IN PROGRESS PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT THE AUTHORS PERMISSION Abstract Greece s agreement on the EU/IMF bailout package and the austerity measures that followed provoked massive demonstrations in Athens. The daily rallies of the outraged citizens at Syntagma square were the most vital ones due to the length and the massiveness of the movement. During the rallies our research team conducted 100 face to face interviews with protesters at Syntagma square. Thus, the central finding of our research is that the Greek movement of the outraged is not homogeneous. We distinguished among the rank and file protesters, those organizing the general assembly, and finally a significant number of participants inclining to the extreme right parties. Anti-party, anti-parliamentary, or even antidemocratic sentiments belong to the political discourse of the outraged. While rank and file protesters stand against the existing political parties and the political elites, those organizing the general assembly prefer a referendum democracy rather than a parliamentary one. In addition, supporters of the extreme right are openly against parliamentary democracy and the democratic system as a whole. In our paper we try to examine convergences and divergences between the outraged citizens in respect to their political discourse. Taking this into account, we try to evaluate the validity of a mainstream public opinion according to which anti-parliamentary and antidemocratic sentiments became dominant among the protesters.

2 1. Introduction On May 25 th 2011 Greek citizens were gathered in the central squares of the major Greek cities thus constructing what will be on time be named as the movement of the outraged. Hence, since the day one of this new type of social movement, meaning the occupation of central squares, the Greek Polity entered in a sphere of intense skepticism and severe social and political protest against the austerity measures that followed the EU-IMF s involvement in the Greek economy in order to assess Greece s essential economic issues and the public debt crisis. In contrast to a general idea of a centric indisputable notion of spontaneity that more or less characterizes each and every social movement, the Greek indignants were at first acknowledged as a response and thus a mirror image of the Spanish movement of indignados or M-15. From a historical perspective the Spanish movement of the indignados started one week earlier from the Greek. It began on May 15 th 2011 with thousands of mainly young Spaniards camping out in Madrid s central Square Puerta del Sol in an attempt to protest against their governments stiff austerity measures and Spain s poor economic performance. The movement enlarged rapidly from day to day reaching numbers of thousands of protesters and thus provoking analogous reactions to others European countries that were at the stake of an essential economic crisis. What seemed to set the fire for the Greek outraged citizens to formulate their own everyday protest action was a banner by the Spanish protesters poking the Greeks for their attitude: Be quiet the Greeks are sleeping. It only took one day for the Greeks to respond, by occupying public squares and hanging a banner just in front of the Parliament in Athens that used the Spanish flag as background and replied, We are awake! What time is it? It s time they (politicians and government executives) leave!!!. Hence, a new type of European social movement emerged. The movement of the outraged citizens in Europe Even if it emerged from the European South and thrived in the country that experienced the most serious economic divergences the European movement of the outraged shared some distinctive common features: 1) non-party mobilization. 2) peaceful character, and 3) The usage of new media, namely facebook and twitter for its organization as well as evolution. The movement of outraged citizens in Greece Apart from the important role of New Media in the formulation, organization and development of the movement of the outraged citizens in Greece, we can name down two additionally important and distinctive features of it: 1) Its massiveness, 2) its chronicle duration. Athens as the epitome: Brief Historical overview of the Greek movement of the outraged Official reports talk about people on the first Greek indignant citizens gathering in Athens. Not surprisingly Athens became the major city of protest with citizens travelling from other cities in order to attend the every day IPSA WORLD CONGRESS MADRID JULY

3 gatherings. In contrast to Madrid and other European cities, the Athenian indignants did not occupy Athens most central square Omonia but prefered the Syntagma square for its position just opposite to the Greek Parliament. It would not be arbitrary to add that Syntagma Square shares an important political legacy as key emblematic struggles of the Greek Left and progressive forces had been held in Syntagma, adhering in the square a notion of a political legacy intrinsic to rebellion and protest. May 29, namely the first Sunday of the movement, can be characterized as a day that signified the movement s dynamic. This is mainly because the number of participants protesters growth significantly, implying by that continuity. The day was set as a day of peaceful pan-european demonstrations and in Athens authorities estimated that to thousands of demonstrators were gathered. June 5 was set as a second day of pan-european demonstrations and marked the 12th continuous day of demonstrations. Let alone it considered to be as one of the most massive protests in Greece since the 1980s as it is estimated that well over 300,000 gathered at Syntagma Square that evening. On 28th June, Greek unions began a 48-hour strike, in protest of the deteriorating economic situation and the willingless of the government to vote for new austerity measures. Subsequently, on 29 June, the day when a new package of deeply unpopular austerity measures was passed by the Greek parliament, the strike turned on to violent clashes between the riot police and protesters. Finally, on July 30, as the movement degraded from day to day during the core of the Greek summer, municipality cops and riot police evacuated by force the remaining protesters camp at Syntagma Square in Athens, namely 60 days after the initial occupation. 2. Mass mobilization, political protest and democracy. Key elements of theoretical conceptualization At the end of the 50s / in the beginning of the 60s new forms of mass mobilization appeared in many European and other Western countries. The economic growth in the first post war era, the democratization of public education, the value change and the post-materialist content of the new values in the post-industrial world (Inglehart 1977) were key factors for the emergence of unconventional forms of social and political action, in many developed countries. Although these were very different forms of political participation and mobilization, compared to those the western countries used to have, they became very soon a norm and a mainstream in the Western world (Barnes & Kaase 1979: 13-14; Norris 2007; Gemenis & Dinas 2012). Barnes and Kaase in their seminal work on Political Action (1979) try to explore the causes why the forms of unconventional means of politics had flooded Western democracies in the late 1960s (Barnes & Kaase 1979: 14). Although in the beginning of this process the emergence of unconventional forms of mass mobilization were directly or indirectly a consequence of economic affluence and political stability, the consolidation and normalization IPSA WORLD CONGRESS MADRID JULY

4 of these forms were the result of the economic crisis, the fall in the political trust and the widening of electoral volatility many European countries faced in the late post war era (ibid). Mass mobilization and mass protest are actions based on feelings of political dissatisfaction. If people are dissatisfied with politics and at the same time they are unable to express their feeling of discontent to somebody who is actually listening to them (the government, the politicians, the political parties, etc), then comes the urge to shout (Boulding 1965), in other words the need to express their dissatisfaction (Farah, Barnes & Marsh 1979: 410). Political protest requires the conincidence of these different kinds of feelings within the citizenry: the feeling of discontent and political inefficacy. According to many authors (see for example Gurr 1970, Klandermans 1984, Klandermans 1997, van Stekelenburg & Klandermans 2010) feelings of discontent and political inefficacy lead to mass mobilization and protest. Although the interconnection between individual feelings and social or political action is not indisputable, the question of who is willing to protest and why remains a very important one. Exploring the reasons of mass mobilization and political protest, some authors insist that deprivation, frustration and aggression result in political protest, although this is not inevitable, according to Barnes & Kaase (1979: 16). Not the lack of personal or material resources but people s low expectations of politics (ibid) are the driving force behind a situation of mass mobilization and mass protest (ibid, p. 17). Kaase & Marsh (1979: 31) have noticed the importance the changing of values has on political action. The shift to more individualistic values, which became dominant in the late sixties and the increasing political involvement of many young and well educated people, constitute a threat to the political status quo (ibid), in other words, a challenge to the political institutions, the political authorities and the structure of power which exists within the frame of liberal democracy. Did the new forms of mass mobilization and political protest threaten not only the political status quo but the liberal democracy too? The answer of Kaase & Marsh (ibid) was negative. Declining confidence in the regime institutions (i.e. government, parties), fall in citizen s satisfaction with the regime performance and fall in trust of the political actors (i.e. politicians, political authorities, etc), are phenomena of the postindustrial and the late post-war societies, that don t affect seriously the support to the principles of democratic regime and liberal democratic order. According to Norris (1999: 9), political support is a multi-dimensional phenomenon regarding the quality of support which can be a diffuse or a specific one and to the levels it refers to. 1 According to Dalton (1999), the distinction between diffuse and specific support is important, because a democratic system requires a reservoir of diffuse support in order to remain viable, independent of the amount of specific support, that the lower levels of 1 This distinction between diffuse and specific support goes back to David Easton. Specific support is, according to him, a quid pro quo for the fulfillment of demands (1965: 268); diffuse support builts up a reservoir of support upon which a system may draw credit in times when things are going badly (Easton 1965: 249). IPSA WORLD CONGRESS MADRID JULY

5 a democratic system provide. In other words, eroding support for political institutions, regime performance and political authorities could mobilize people to protest against governments, parties and politicians, if they are stimulated to express their disaffection, throw out office-holders, and seek institutional redress (Norris 1999: 259), although the emergence of protest action does not in itself signal the end of stable liberal democracy (Kaase & Marsh 1979: 49). Research questions Are forms of mass mobilization and protest behavior compatible with conventional political participation? To put it differently, do citizens who participate in different kinds of direct political actions (petitions, marches, demonstrations, buildings occupation, revolts, etc), continue to take part in political and electoral processes, which belong to the everyday life of representative democracy? What is the connection of direct political actions with political violence? Do citizens, who are using the techniques of direct political action, tolerate, or even more legitimate, the apply of political violence, in order to express their feelings, or fulfill their aims? Who is that (wo)man in the street (van Aelst & Walgrave 2001) and which are the motives of his/her mobilization? According to the rent-a-crowd theory, citizens who participate in mass mobilizations and political protest are considered to be left-wing young people, well educated, with no party identifications or other political ties. Marsh & Kaase (1979: 58) refute this stand, by supporting almost the opposite; the readiness to participate in direct political actions and the protest potential within the population is more widespread than actual behavior would suggest (ibid., 92). Two decades later, other scholars (van Aelst & Walgrave 2001: 466, 481) verify this trend of normalization of the protester in terms of age, gender and education. They have mentioned that although young, male, and well-educated citizans are more willing to participate to lawful demonstrations (ibid, 468), older people, women and less educated have also a dynamic protest potential. The socio-demographic composition of the protest depends upon the specific kind of mass events. It is logical that the composition of an anti-nuclear mass mobilization is different from a demonstration against cutting jobs policies or restraints in health-care. Taking all these into account, are the profiles of demonstrators different to those of the average man or woman in the street? (ibid 466). To paraphrase slightly the above mentioned title question, we could ask Who were those (wo)men in the squares? What do we know about their opinion on democracy, the political institutions, the politicians and the use of violence? Did they have expectations from the mass protests they participated in? What were their motives? 3. Methodology and Data IPSA WORLD CONGRESS MADRID JULY

6 Collective action has been widely examined and several research methods have been used in order to investigate the participation and the protest behavior of the participants. Population surveys, participatory observation, panel surveys, event analysis, interviewing protesters are the most dominant research methods (van Aelst & Walgrave 2001). Event analysis is using newspaper and police archives as its main source of information and thus it could be considered limited since journalists and police officers asses the composition of a protest march on the basis of only a few characteristics (especially those reflecting socio-professional category) and their judgments are not always reliable (van Aelst & Walgrave 2001: 472). Our aim was to analyze the event primarily and event analysis could not offer that option. In addition, population survey with a huge questionnaire in such demonstrations is not recommended, since participants are not willingly to devote much time in answering questions in a script. For the better understanding of participants opinion and in order to maintain contact with the participants we ve decided to conduct semi-structured interviews with the participants and gather as many answers in the following subjects: 1. the frequency of their participation in the protest 2. the way in which they were informed for the protest 3. their expectations from the protest 4. their opinion for democracy in Greece 5. the ideal way that democracy could work 6. their opinion about political parties and politicians in Greece 7. their opinion about violence Our sampling method was structured through our participative observation in the demonstrations in Syntagma Square. During the first week of the protest we participated in the demonstrations as observers and that helped us acquire a better understanding of the population structure and the geographical segmentation of the demonstrators. We gathered 90 interviews from the participants of the protest in Syntagma square, from all the parts of the square. The sampling method was that of theoretical sampling. The theoretical sampling is a technical selection of cases put forward by Glaser & Strauss (1967) in the context of their methodological strategies that are known as "grounded theory". Based on theoretical sampling the selection of cases, a gradual and parallel to the processing of the material, which, he presupposes. The theoretical sampling is based on the constant comparison method. The researcher looks for cases seeking to maximize or minimize the differences in those characteristics, which are of theoretical interest. He attempts so by comparing and contrasting the cases to specify the best possible and strengthen more the theoretical categories that are available. The collection of IPSA WORLD CONGRESS MADRID JULY

7 cases stops, with the occurrence of the "theoretical saturation" i.e. when the additional cases collected do not enrich the existing assumptions and categories; nor provide new information. The diversity of the people The very nature of the arithmetic dimension of the Greek outraged movement can highlight itself the diversity of the participants. Not only by means of age diversity, but also and most importantly the wide political entities that took part in this movement and expressed their oppositions and distrust against the dominant Greek and European Institutions. For those participated in the movement, as well as, for those monitoring its actions and procedures of evolution it was obvious that the more massive the gathering was the more diverse the participants looked. The political geography of the square: Hence, and mainly due to some hidden or underlying political cultures the distinct political approaches that constituted as a whole the movement of the indignant citizens day by day occupied their own area and stabilized their own political spheres. Providing a map of the Syntagma Square from above will help us differentiate the geographical presence of each and every political subtotal and the space they occupied within the movement as our team considers. We should then note down that our research team has tracked down 4 distinct political cultures with its own space: 1) The left-wing protesters: It is about the people who remained for most of the time in the Square, organized and participated in the popular general assembly, camped out in the Square and formulated specific action teams such as multimedia team, general assembly topics team, team for cleaning up and guarding the movement team. 2) The right-wing (extremists): Anti-memorandum citizens with clear nationalistic beliefs that gathered close on the left of the Greek Parliament (Amalias Street). The team constituted of right-wing nationalists that sang the national anthem, used the Greek flag and presented the extreme-right political reply to the memorandum and the EU. 3) The anti-ideology neutrals. This is people seems to be closely related to the anti-ideological entity of the worldwide indignant movement. They seem not willing to posit themselves either on the left, neither on the right of the political spectrum, asserting their ideological and political independence and highlighting their distrust and their repulsion for all political forces. This is where their anger mainly derives from. This group in Athens stayed in front of the parliament, shouting slogans, making gestures against the Parliament and criticizing with a rather radical tone each and every politician. They seem to entertain the gatherings making their presence as a kind of a protest happening. 4) The all-arounds : Apart from the formulations mentioned above many people possibly acknowledging this distinct indignant entities wanted to experience the whole collective protest action as a whole. Therefore, even if they had closer affiliations with some of the groups mentioned above they did not want to stabilize the distinctions even more and thus circulated between the other dominant entities. Needed to be clarified other dimensions of political entities took place IPSA WORLD CONGRESS MADRID JULY

8 in the movement but the aforementioned were the largest in number and more obvious in presence that our research team tracked down. 4. Data analysis Political Expectations: Although many analysts thought that the so-called movement of the squares was rather an outburst than a targeted political action, we ascertain that the great majority of the respondents did have expectations of the mass protest in Syntagma square. The content of their expectations was very wide and in many cases unspecific, but the vast majority believes that the movement of the squares could bring a result for overcoming, directly or indirectly, the current crisis in Greece. For many participants who felt that their opinion didn t count, taking part in this protest mobilization was a unique opportunity to express their dissatisfaction or even outrage vis-à-vis politicians, parties or even the political system in Greece. Contrary to a widely held view that disappointment and frustration made citizens apathetic, we find out that the disappointed and outraged people had expectations from politics, although the mood of many people was a mixture of expectations, aggression and the will of (radical) change concerning the political status quo. Political System/ Model of Democracy: The great plurality of the respondents (96%) has the opinion, that there is not a real democracy in Greece, although almost the same majority (90%) is in favor of a democratic system. Talking about the kind of democracy more than a half of the respondents (56%) prefer to support an ideal form of democracy (Figure 1); in other words, democracy for them is an ideal political regime that can t be easily transformed into a model of government. Even between respondents with extremist ideas, the democratic ideal remains, at least verbally, viable, although they prefer rather an elitist type of government. If for many of our respondents democracy is equated with an ideal, for an important number of them (33%) a direct type of democracy is in favor, by which decisions must be taken by referendums and popular assemblies. Figure 1. Preferred type of democracy IPSA WORLD CONGRESS MADRID JULY

9 Why our respondents have an almost totally negative opinion about the quality of democracy in Greece? According to our data, it is more than obvious, that representation crisis (but not a legitimation one) is the main reason (Figure 2). To put it in another way, the main reason why democracy in Greece isn t working well is not because representatives and parties are not be trusted from the majority of the citizens, but first of all because political authorities and parties don t represent properly the interests and the demands of the citizens. Figure 2. Reasons for democracy s malfunction This founding can also be used in order to explain the very negative opinion that almost all respondents expressed about politicians and political parties, which with the exception of some extend of the smaller parties are all a kind of cartel taking care only for themselves. Mass Protest Democracy Political Violence Participants in the mass protest of Syntagma Square, who responded to our questionnaire, expressed a diffuse support for democracy in general. At the same time they rejected the way the democratic system works in Greece nowadays, as well as the political institutions and the political agents of the Greek political and party system. Although democracy enjoys the diffuse support of the citizens, the lower levels of democracy (institutions and agents) don t gain a serious amount of specific support from the people. According to our findings, a reservoir of democratic support does exist. Is this the reason why, despite the lack of specific support, that the vast majority of the respondents reject the use of violence as political mean? This does not mean that, vis-à-vis the political and party system in Greece, mobilized citizens and protester aren t available to use violence against the existing political elite and the political institutions. One of our impressive findings is IPSA WORLD CONGRESS MADRID JULY

10 that despite the general negation of using violence from the ¾ of our respondents (Table 1), the potentiality of accepting or using violence against politicians from almost 2/3 of the respondents reveals that the relationship between direct political action and the democratic order is more complicated than we think. Table 1. Opinions on violence Violence against politicians In favour 27,3 I wouldn't do it, but I do not 34,1 disagree when it's happening Against 38,6 Violence as a mean of political action In favour 17,1 I wouldn't use it, but I do not 7,1 disagree when others use it Against 75,7 5. Bibliography Barnes, S. H. & Kaase, M. (1979), Political Action. Mass participation in five western democracies, Beverly Hills & London: Sage Publications. Boulding, K. H. (1965), Towards a Theory of Protest, boulding.pdf (first published in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 21/8, 1965). Dalton, R. (2002), The Decline of Party identifications, in: Dalton, R. J. & Wattenberg, M. P. (eds.), Parties without Partisans. Political change in advanced industrial societies, Oxford University press. IPSA WORLD CONGRESS MADRID JULY

11 Dalton, R. (1999), Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies, in: Norris, P. (ed.), Critical Citizens: Global support for democratic government, Oxford University Press. Easton D. (1965), A Systems Analysis of Political Life, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Farah, B. G., Barnes, S. H. & Marsh, A. (1979), Political Dissatisfaction, in Barnes, S. H. & Kaase, M. (1979), Political Action. Mass participation in five western democracies, Beverly Hills & London: Sage Publications. Gemenis, K. & Dinas, E. (forthcoming), Revisiting the role of process incentives as a determinant of university students protest, European Political Science Review. Gurr, T. (1970), Why men rebel, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Inglehart, R. (1977), The Silent Revolution, Princeton, NJ: The Princeton University Press. Kaase, M. & Marsh, A. (1979), Political Action. A theoretical perspective, in Barnes, S. H. & Kaase, M. (1979), Political Action. Mass participation in five western democracies, Beverly Hills & London: Sage Publications. Klandermans, B. (1984), Mobilization and Participation: Socialpsychological expansions of resource mobilization theory, ASP, 49(4): , Klandermans, B. (1997), The Social Psychology of Protest, Oxford: Blackwell. Major, B. (1994), From Social Inequality to Personal Entitlement: The role of social comparisons, legitimacy appraisals, and group membership, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 26: Marsh, A. & Kaase, M. (1979), Backgroung of Political Action, in: Barnes, S. H. & Kaase, M. (1979), Political Action. Mass participation in five western democracies, Beverly Hills & London: Sage Publications. Norris, P. (1999). Introduction: The growth of critical citizens?, in: Norris, P. (ed.), Critical Citizens: Global support for democratic government, Oxford University Press. Norris, P. (2007), Political Activism: New challenges, new opportunities, in: Boix, C. & Stokes, S. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics, New York: Oxford University Press. Opp, K.-D. (2009), Theories of Political Protest and Social Movements, London & New York: Routledge. IPSA WORLD CONGRESS MADRID JULY

12 Van Aelst, P. & Walgrave, St. (2001), Who is that (wo)man in the street? From the normalization of protest to the normalization of protester, EJPR, 39: Van Stekelenburg, J. & Klandermans, B. (2010), The Social Psychology of Protest, Sociopedia IPSA WORLD CONGRESS MADRID JULY