Civil society in Greece before and after the economic crisis

Until 2010, when the crisis erupted, Greek civil society was weak, as it was dependent on the state and political parties. However, some professional associations and public sector unions had succeeded in the regulatory capture of the policy sectors in which they were involved, while a few informal networks of citizens had able to escape financial dependence on the sate and political penetration by parties. In the wake of the crisis and following the austerity measures of Greece’s two bailout packages, unions and associations mobilized against the government either to preserve the living standards of the population or to protect their own narrowly defined interests. Informal social movements sprang quickly and challenged specific policies and political institutions as a whole. The evident strengthening of civil society did not necessarily lead to an improvement of the quality of democracy. Atypical, often violent, forms of political participation prevailed over typical ones and tested the limits of parliamentary democracy, raising questions on the mixed and contradictory nature of relations between civil society and modern democracy in times of economic crisis.