A New Dawn? Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece

Abstract

With the arrest and conviction of members of the Greek Revolutionary Organization 17 November in the early 2000s, the chapter appeared to be closing on one of the last of a generation of urban guerrillas in Western Europe. Before the end of that decade, however, not only had a new batch of violent political organizations arisen in Greece, but the country had also experienced its worst social unrest in over thirty years. With a view to helping fill an emerging descriptive and analytical gap, this article summarizes key features of political violence in Greece between 1974 and 2011, and highlights the importance of three factors to explaining the resumption of organized political violence in the 2000s: the socio-economic environment, the treatment of radical demands by the political system, and the dynamics of violence between the state and non-state groups. In so doing, the article includes an unprecedented account of the role of the state and far-right organizations in the escalation of political violence in Greece. The article goes on to critically review expert, political, and media accounts of the evolution of political violence in the country, and concludes by considering pertinent policy implications.