Socio-political Responses during Recessionary Times in Greece: An Introduction

In the context of the recent global financial crisis – the most severe crisis since the Great De-pression – Greece has been heavily affected in almost all aspects of the economic, social, political and in-stitutional spheres. The implemented draconian austerity measures under the bailout mechanisms have led to devastating effects on the lives of citizens that have triggered a plethora of collective initiatives. The main rationale of the Special Issue is to capture the various facets of socio-political responses that have emerged from the aftermath of the Greek financial crisis. The Special Issue relies on original data produced in the context of two EU-funded projects, namely LIVEWHAT and TransSOL, and includes six papers apply-ing qualitative and quantitative methods, providing a rich set of fresh and systematic data on understand-ing the collective efforts of Greek citizens during recessionary times.