How Has the Phenomenon of Revolutionary Groups Been Resilient in Greece? A Relational Study of Two Contentious Episodes (1965 – 2002)

This thesis addresses a major issue in contentious politics. Why are revolutionary groups resilient in Greece? Greece has experienced regular instances of political violence in the past decades – from low-level phenomena, such as vandalisms, riots and clashes with the police, to high-level occurrences, such as the operation of clandestine groups. Particularly critical has been the rise of a series of revolutionary groups from the 1960s onwards. Identified as clandestine left-wing groups that organise underground and use violent methods to disrupt the political system and cause radical political change, revolutionary groups have been one of the most enduring challenges faced by the modern Greek state. By employing mixed methods for a deep analysis of the phenomenon’s causes in Greece, this thesis shows how the emergence of the revolutionary groups can be traced back in the military junta’s era (1967 – 1974) – making Greece the oldest and most protracted case of revolutionary violence in Europe, and one of the most resilient globally. To trace the phenomenon, this thesis follows a relational analytical approach (McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly 2001; Alimi, Demetriou and Bosi 2015) that emphasises the role of mechanisms and posits the content of interactions as key to the understanding of groups’ violence. Based on a comparative design across generations of armed groups and the study of their communiqués, this research provides a detailed analysis of the mechanisms that facilitated the radicalisation process of two different revolutionary groups: the Revolutionary Popular Movement (LEA) (1965 – 1974) and the Revolutionary Organisation November 17 (17N) (1975 – 2002). By combining a process-oriented approach with an analysis of the groups’ collective action frames and framing strategies, this thesis traces the similarities and dissimilarities of the two contentious episodes, revealing the recurring mechanisms that triggered the revolutionary groups’ emergence, resilience and decline in Greece.