The Political Implications of the Transboundary Crises in Greece

The term "permacrisis" has topped a leading dictionary's 'words of the year' list for 2022. According to the same dictionary "permacrisis" is defined as “an extended period of instability and insecurity especially one resulting from a series of catastrophic events”. Certainly, for the year 2022 such an event was the war in Ukraine and the subsequent humanitarian, energy and food crises it sparkled. This catastrophic event came in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic which in turn had created problems in supply chains worldwide and had triggered heavy inflationary pressures in the world economy. Just before the pandemic crisis, several countries, including Greece, had been tested by the economic crisis and the severe austerity policies implemented to deal with it. And all this in a context of climate change and successive refugee flows. So, it is rather self-evident that we are dealing with a set of multiple or transboundary crises. Seen from another angle, the above phenomena are connected and/or are aspects of the capitalist crisis that broke out in 2008 which has not yet been overcome by the establishment of a new and relatively stable and acceptable regime of accumulation. Moreover, seen from a world-system perspective the modern world-system in which we are living, which is that of a capitalist world-economy, has entered a systemic crisis where the severe crises we are facing cannot be resolved within the framework of the system. According to this view, the postcapitalist world-system, after a chaotic process of bifurcating will be opting either for a dystopian undemocratic hierarchical system, or for a relatively democratic, relatively egalitarian system. Seen through a political science prism in such a period of transboundary crises all intended interventions and even every small action is likely to have significant consequences. With the above considerations in mind, this panel seeks to explore and discuss some of the most recent political developments in the case study of Greece. Namely, the panel focuses on contemporary aspects of political participation, political discourse, polarization and the rise of authoritarian tendencies.