Radical democracy, the commons and everyday struggles during the Greek crisis
| Author | David Howarth,Konstantinos Roussos |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481211067147 |
| Published date | 01 May 2023 |
| Date | 01 May 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481211067147
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2023, Vol. 25(2) 311 –327
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/13691481211067147
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Radical democracy, the
commons and everyday
struggles during the
Greek crisis
David Howarth1 and Konstantinos Roussos2
Abstract
Set against theoretical and strategic debates about theories of radical democracy, left populism
and the commons, this article analyses and evaluates everyday struggles in Greek politics after
the global financial crisis. It focusses on the cases of Vio.Me – the first workers’ recuperated
factory in Greece – and the Metropolitan Community Clinic at Helliniko, which is the largest
social solidarity health clinic in Greece. Viewed from the perspective of commoning practices,
the article identifies the logics that sustain the beliefs, values, infrastructures and institutions
developed at an everyday grassroots level, finding traces of an incipient radical democratic ethos
and rationality at work. The new initiatives highlight crucial and often neglected organisational,
prefiguring and subjective prerequisites for radical democracy, while challenging elements of left
populist political strategy. Our evolving perspective also problematises their political limitations
and strategic dilemmas as they struggle to constitute a viable hegemonic alternative to neoliberal
rationalities and governance.
Keywords
austerity, collective action, commons, co-production, everyday politics, Greece, left populism,
protest, radical democracy, self-organisation, social movements, workers’ collectives
The project of radical democracy stands at a crossroads. For many, its promises of greater
freedom, equality, pluralism and social justice have either failed to form a credible alter-
native to the dominant models of liberal and neoliberal capitalist democracy, or been
transmuted into authoritarian and populist forms, potentially jeopardising liberal values
and democratic institutions. Others argue that the democratic imaginary itself has failed
to cope with pressing issues in our rapidly changing world, including increasing social
inequalities, racism and climate crisis. Yet, in the last decade, a wave of grassroots strug-
gles has shaken the world, including the Indignant and Occupy movements (Syntagma
1Department of Government, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
2School of Health and Social Care, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
Corresponding author:
David Howarth, Department of Government, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK.
Email: davidh@essex.ac.uk
1067147BPI0010.1177/13691481211067147The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsHowarth and Roussos
research-article2022
Original Article
312 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 25(2)
and Puerta del Sol squares to Zuccotti and Gezi Parks) in 2011–2012, the Black Lives
Matter, Ni Una Menos and Indigenous Rights movements, the Gilets Jaunes and the
global protests in Chile, Hong Kong, Catalonia, Lebanon and elsewhere in 2019. Such
movements have questioned the institutions and practices of representative democracy, as
well as its notion of citizenship, while proposing different forms of democratic politics,
which emphasise direct participation, horizontality, deliberation, equality and inclusivity
(Della Porta, 2020).
Some of these theoretical tensions and practical challenges are crystallised in Greek
politics since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008, which brought a resurgence of
radical thought and practice. After the Aganaktismenoi Squares Movement in the summer
of 2011, novel forms of democratic collective action and self-organisation emerged, many
employing innovative strategies to counter neoliberal austerity (Arampatzi, 2017). In
January 2015, the new conjuncture ushered in the electoral victory of SYRIZA; ostensi-
bly a party of the European radical left. Yet, despite SYRIZA’s active participation in the
popular struggles, and its connections with grassroots networks, the party moved away
from its socially active grassroots base and its erstwhile radical credentials, which were
grounded on a positive view of the latter’s non-traditional, participatory and bottom-up
style of politics (Spourdalakis, 2013: 109–112).
In the context of a growing disaffection with existing models of democracy, this article
reworks the project of radical democracy by engaging with the logics and practices of
commoning. Our aim is to evaluate some of the new practices and organisational forms
in Greece since the movements of the squares in relation to the ongoing debates about the
character and future possibilities of radical democracy. Tracing out their lived experi-
ences, while extracting and articulating their core values, we endeavour to rehabilitate the
project of radical democracy by weakening and reworking its attachment to the logic of
left-wing populism, which is a dominant theme in much recent post-Marxist and critical
political theory. We argue that this tendency has two problematic effects: first, populism
acquires strategic primacy over other forms and logics of radical democracy. Second, it
can lead at best to a simple conflation between radical democracy and populism, and at
worst to an understanding of populism as both the means and the end of the radical demo-
cratic imaginary (Laclau, 2010).
Instead, our analysis of the Greek cases shows how the distinctive social logics embod-
ied in such grassroots movements – social co-production, self-organisation, democratic
decision-making, distributed leadership, and so on – often exemplifying the practices of
commoning, can productively supplement the idea of radical democracy, while concretely
prefiguring its accomplishment. Our argument is thus developed through a thick descrip-
tion of two long-established and ongoing grassroots projects in Greece – the recuperated
Vio.Me factory and the Metropolitan Community Clinic at Helliniko (MCCH) – which
are judged to be ‘paradigmatic cases’ of the new politics (Flyvbjerg, 2001). The initiatives
show how neoliberal austerity governance dismantled basic social rights in labour, health
and social care, targeting the embedded labour and social welfare structures and practices
(Petmesidou, 2013), while disclosing how such changes are lived and contested in every-
day life. We then explore how the ideas associated with the commons function as a pro-
ductive supplement for the project of radical democracy by expanding its demands and
strategico-theoretical orientation. In so doing, the article begins by piercing a selection of
current debates about radical democracy, before presenting our theoretical approach and
research strategies. We then turn to the problematisation and characterisation of the two
Greek cases.
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