doi: 10.1111/1467-8675.
12234
Radical Left Populism in Contemporary Greece: Syrizas
Trajectory from Minoritarian Opposition to Power
Giorgos Katsambekis
Introduction
The recent rise to power of the Coalition of the
Radical Left (Syriza) in Greece has confronted political
scientists with an empirical terra incognita and a
broader theoretico-political puzzle. On the one hand,
research on the European radical Left is relatively
underdeveloped;1 on the other hand, Syrizas left-wing
egalitarian and inclusionary populism challenges the
definitions and analytical tools of various models
regarding the populist phenomenon.
This article aims at an in-depth exploration of
Syrizas discourse, covering the period from its emer-
gence as a loose coalition of parties and groups in 2004
up to the campaign that led to its accession to power
in 2015. The contribution of this study to the relevant
literature is twofold. First, it offers an original and ex-
tensive survey of the discourse of this coalition/party
while in opposition, and also critically assesses it in
terms of its populist character and particular contents.2
Second, it builds on the peculiarities of Syrizas pop-
ulism to highlight specific shortcomings in mainstream
approaches to populism,3 while it advocates a minimal
discursive definition of populism based on the theoret-
ical contribution of Ernesto Laclau and the so-called
Essex School.4
Clarifications on the Notion of Populism
The ongoing debates on the definition of populism,
as well as the need for the formulation of minimal
discursive criteria in the analysis of the phenomenon
based on the work of Laclau and the Essex School
have already been dealt with in length.5 Moving
beyond the Essex School, and taking into account
the consensus that already seems to emerge around
discursive or ideational approaches,6 two operational
criteria have been highlighted. To put it in a nutshell,
a discourse-oriented approach to populism is premised
on establishing whether a given discursive practice
under examination is, first, articulated around the nodal
point, the people, or other equivalent nodal points,
and, second, to what extent the representation of society
it offers is a predominantly antagonistic one, dividing
the social field into two antagonistic camps: the elite,
the establishment, or the power block, on the one side,
and the people, the underdog, or the non-privileged,
Constellations Volume 00, No 0, 2016.

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on the other. When those two conditions are in place at
the same time, it is safe to call a party or a movement
populist.7
This definition, based on minimal criteria, follows
the groundbreaking work of scholars that have stressed
the merits of Sartorian minimal definitions for conduct-
ing comparative research.8 The main issue with such
approaches, however, is that their definitions are not
minimal enough, since they do not just highlight the
core characteristics of the phenomenon, operating at a
high level of abstraction. They also move on to partly
predetermine the specific contents of this phenomenon,
attributing to populism a predominantly moralist and
homogenizing character. In other words, the terms along
which the people and its enemy are constructed seem
to be determined a priori: the people should be pure,
good, homogenous and always right, while the es-
tablishment should be corrupt, evil and wrong.
Such claims, even if they cover most of the historical
instances of populism, do not stand empirical or theo-
retical scrutiny and may be proven flawed when analyz-
ing empirical cases like the one studied in this article.
After all, why can we not conceive of a populist dis-
course that is not moralist, but primarily political? And
why should the people be necessarily homogenous
and not merely unified despite an acknowledged het-
erogeneity and plurality? These are questions to which
I will return after examining my empirical case.
In this context, I maintain that in order to be in
a better position to deal with the plurality of populist
hybrids, without diagnosing their specific ideologico-
political, ethical, or other contents a priori, one should
try to strip definitions of any bias and thus effectively
de-hypostasize populism. If we manage to do so, we
will probably end up with a definition very close to the
one given by Laclau roughly forty years ago,9 which
understands populism as a specific political/discursive
logic that represents society as divided between two
groups, the people and the establishment, and which
argues that politics should be an expression of the will
of the people;10 a definition that was re-affirmed by the
other heavyweights of populism theory, like Margaret
Canovan.11
With these brief theoretical observations in mind, I
will now proceed with examining the particular logics
that have diachronically governed Syrizas discourse,
and the core signifiers around which this discourse is
2 Constellations Volume 00, Number 0, 2016
articulated, as well as the socio-political preconditions
of its success.
Syriza and the Greek Politics of Consensus
The impressive rise of Syriza,12 once a fringe political
force, to power, has been one of the main by-products of
the severe socioeconomic crisis that hit Greece in 2009.
Initially formed in 2004 as a coalition of left-wing par-
ties, organizations, and political groups ranging from
the so-called renewal left, the radical left, and mi-
nority rights activists to Trotskyists and Maoists, Syriza
gained momentum within a very few years, with their
vote rising from a mere 4.6% in the 2009 elections to
36.4% in 2015. To understand this unprecedented dy-
namic and the role that its populist discourse played
in it, one should first take into account the very recent
developments in the Greek political system and society.
Since 1974 Greece had been governed by main-
stream parties of the center-right and center-left that ro-
tated in power and formed stable one-party governments
until 2011, and then governed in coalitions until the
early 2015. New Democracy (ND), on the center-right,
and the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), on
the center-left, competed in a polarized political sys-
tem throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, and
gradually converged towards the center, reaching con-
sensus in various key policies.13 PASOK gave up its
left-wing populist and egalitarian agenda for a third-
way Blairite one, while ND also abandoned any ref-
erence to its right-wing conservative identity in order
to occupy what it understood as the middle ground.
Structural reforms, competitiveness, privatizations, the
rationalization of fiscal policies, the advocacy of a so-
ciety of dynamic individuals and a hostility towards
collective forms of organization and mobilization, along
with a vocal anti-populism, have ever since become cen-
tral themes of their common language. By the time the
global financial crisis hit Greece, they had converged to
such an extent that, after November 2011, they could
govern easily together for little more than three years.
Let me very briefly explain what led to their first coali-
tion government.
In October 2009 PASOK, under the leadership of
George Papandreou (the son of the historic leader
and founder of PASOK, Andreas Papandreou), won
the elections by promising a redistribution of wealth
through a fairer taxation system in favor of the lower
and middle social strata. PASOK had incorporated
social-democratic and neo-Keynesian elements in its
pre-electoral economic program, closely interrelated
with plans to strengthen direct popular participation
in decision-making. However, once in government, and
with the Greek economy crumbling, PASOK performed
a U-turn, signing an emergency bailout agreement with

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European institutions and the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) (the so-called troika), which imposed
a series of harsh austerity measures in an outright
neoliberal fashion.14 This was not only a severe blow
to the social groups that had traditionally supported
PASOK but also a circumvention of the popular man-
date, which immediately triggered frustration and anger
in Greek society. As social unrest was mounting and
the PASOK government stood on the verge of collapse,
George Papandreou resigned to make room for the for-
mation of a coalition government with ND in November
2011, under Lucas Papademos, a non-parliamentarian
technocrat and ex-central banker. Papandreou was
pushed to this decision under pressure from a massive
grassroots anti-austerity movement that had swept the
country, and especially from the so-called movement
of the squares (the aganaktismenoi), and its aftermath.
The Birth of the Greek Squares Movement
and the Crisis of Representation
The Greek aganaktismenoi emerged just a few days
after their namesake indignados had occupied several
squares in Spains largest cities in May 2011. They
constituted a massive grassroots movement that had
emerged spontaneously, following calls in the social
media that urged the people to voice their indignation
against austerity.15 The basic claim of the movement
was of a populist nature: the people had been betrayed
by the political elites, which were held responsible for
the socioeconomic collapse and could no longer repre-
sented them. Thus, immediate and radical change was
needed. As in the Spanish case, their main demand was
real democracy, which was soon re-phrased into di-
rect democracy, reflecting in this way the emphasis that
the movement put on direct democratic participation and
popular accountability.16 The movement was an over-
all expression of the frustration that broad segments of
Greek society felt with the administration of the crisis by
mainstream political parties (mainly the then-governing
PASOK), but also a clear sign of generalized social
fatigue with the long established two-party system of
Greece. It is no surprise, in this context, that the move-
ment often turned against the whole political system,
rejecting parliamentary politics and other established
institutional forms of representation (e.g. trade unions).
In this way, it revealed a deep crisis of representation
within the Greek political system. The movement was
violently dispersed in the end of June 2011, but mas-
sive anti-government and anti-austerity demonstrations
against a new set of austerity measures soon re-emerged
in autumn 2011, forcing the then-prime minister, George
Papandreou to resign, as already mentioned.
Syriza was the only parliamentary political force to
openly support the squares movement and its demands
 Radical Left Populism in Greece: Giorgos Katsambekis
from the very beginning. Here, one can trace a major
difference between Syriza and its Spanish counterpart,
Podemos, to which it is often contrasted. While the latter
literally emerged from the squares,17 Syriza was already
an established political actor of the Left that managed
to address the movement and capitalize on its dynamic.
It is worth delving into the way in which Syrizas rela-
tionship with this movement developed. To make a long
story short, Syriza first chose to interact horizontally
with the protests, motivating its members and support-
ers to silently become part of it as individuals. In this
way, the political organization actively pursued identifi-
cation with the mobilizations, by becoming part of them
in a discreet and often spontaneous way. The second
step was to effectively represent the movement within
parliamentary politics,18 thus taking a crucial step from
identification to representation.
Let me make this two-step strategy clearer. As soon
as the aganaktismenoi emerged in late May 2011,
Synaspismos (SYN), which was the main constituent
party within the Syriza coalition, openly called its mem-
bers to participate in the demonstrations and square
occupations individually, as citizens; without carrying
their partys flag with them, without trying to actively
promote their partys positions. At the same time, SYN
saluted the aganaktismenoi as an autonomous and
promising movement, a manifestation of popular indig-
nation that can render society and the common people
the leading actors in the upcoming developments.19 For
Alexis Tsipras, the young leader of SYN and Syriza, the
aganaktismenoi prefigured a new social majority that
was starting to take shape, and mainly consisted of frus-
trated PASOK, but also ND voters. The openly declared
aim of SYN/Syriza was to express this social majority
and work towards transforming it into a political major-
ity, building on a wide alliance with other progressive
political actors that had been consistently opposing the
policies of austerity.20 Here is how this strategy was
envisaged in Syrizas official discourse:
The 4th Conference of Syriza stressed the need for the
widest possible rallying of the forces of the Left, the
forces of radical ecology and of those that are defini-
tively breaking away from the choices of the govern-
ment, from the politics and the parties of bipartisanship;
the need for the formation of a new popular majority, a
new coalition of power with the Left in its core and the
immediate objective of an unyielding struggle to oust
the PASOK government, and to defeat all the forces that
support neoliberal and reactionary policies; [a struggle]
to oust the troika of IMF-ECB-EU from Greece, for the
restoration and defence of democracy, for the rebirth of
the Greek society.21
This new political alliance was envisaged as a plu-
ralist political actor of the progressive forces that
would pose a serious challenge to the long-established

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3
two-party system of Greece and put an end to the poli-
tics of austerity.22 As such, it reflected the plurality, het-
erogeneity, and subversive political orientation of the
squares themselves: The squares are the space and the
bond that articulates various heterogeneities, many par-
ticular movements that seek a new way to mobilize and
politicize, and constitute a significant force of dispute,
resistance and subversion.23
The period during the mobilizations of the aganak-
tismenoi and its immediate aftermath was a turning point
and a crucial precondition for Syrizas breakthrough for
two main reasons. First, it led to a significant transfor-
mation in its discourse: by this point onwards, Syriza
wholeheartedly adopted as its core distinction one that
discriminated between the pro-memorandum and the
anti-memorandum forces. This cleavage would sup-
plement or even reinforce the cleavage between Left
and Right, clearly identifying the anti-memorandum
political camp with the popular masses, and the pro-
memorandum political camp with the elites. From then
on, Syrizas aim was to establish itself as the most viable
voice of the anti-memorandum forces in the party sys-
tem, and as the political representative of anti-austerity,
anti-neoliberal and anti-establishment sentiments
within the Greek society. It thus broadened its calls to
various social groups, mainly defectors from PASOK,
in a bid to occupy the space increasingly left empty after
the latter had implemented an agenda of restrictive fiscal
policies, severe budget cuts and market/labor deregula-
tion that mostly hit its middle and lower class electoral
base. Second, this moment, as a major point of rupture,
was the very catalyst that unlocked Syrizas prospect of
becoming a viable challenger party, a true contender
of power. To put it in Ernesto Laclaus terms, the break,
persistence, and massiveness of the movement of the
aganaktismenoi, which was fueled by a plurality of frus-
trated demands, revealed an already present structural
crisis, a dislocation of the Greek political system.24
This dislocation triggered an uncontrolled dynamic
of de-identification and defection of voters, creating a
new pool of floating subjects. Syriza was placed in
a favorable position from where it could interpellate
these social strata that were frustrated and searching for
channels to express their anger and opposition to auster-
ity. The other political forces on the anti-establishment
camp had been already dismantled for different rea-
sons. The Greek Communist Party (KKE) on the left
was hostile to the movement since it could not con-
trol it, and chose to regard it as utterly harmless to the
capitalist establishment. Hence, instead of opening
up to the anti-austerity protests, it chose to carefully or-
ganize its own separate demonstrations with its unions
and members, tightly controlled and organized by the
party hierarchy.25 The populist extreme-right party Pop-
ular Orthodox Rally (LAOS), on the other side, had
4 Constellations Volume 00, Number 0, 2016
rendered itself unable to address the protests because
of the part it played in advancing pro-austerity policies.
And with ND unable to establish links with the protests,
despite various attempts at articulating an alternative to
the austerity, Syriza was posed as the most likely polit-
ical formation to capitalize on the anti-austerity wave.
When in November 2011 ND officially declared that it
would support the memoranda, and thus austerity, the
political space to represent popular anti-austerity senti-
ments was left wide open to Syriza, while social anger
would now be expressed against both pillars of Greeces
bipartisan system.26
In order to better explain the relationship that Syriza
managed to build with the squares and the broader anti-
austerity movement, as well as the expanding dynamic
that it consolidated from this point onwards, I now take a
step back to briefly examine the social linkage strategy27
it had adopted since its establishment in 2004, as re-
flected in its discourse.
Syriza Pre-crisis: a Case of Minoritarian
Populism?
Syriza emerged in 2004 as a coalition of several par-
ties, organizations, and groups of the parliamentary and
extra-parliamentary left. The initiative belonged to the
Coalition of Left, Movements and Ecology (SYN) po-
litical party, which was the dominant group in the al-
liance, representing more than 80% of its cadres, and
the only one with parliamentary representation.28 The
creation of this coalition emerged as a response to the
Greek (non-communist) Lefts long crisis of identity
and its stagnating (often disappointing) electoral results.
Through this coalition, SYN aimed at broadening its ap-
peal to the youth and also to social and political activists,
and thus at reshaping its public profile. This transforma-
tion was also highlighted by SYNs choice to abandon
its self-characterization as the renewal left and loosen
the partys links to the euro-communist tradition, and to
adopt the self-characterization radical left along with
the aspiration to express the newest social movements
against neoliberalism.
The main reason behind this orientation was the
growing influence that the counter-globalization move-
ment in the early 2000s and the legacy of the so-called
Social Forums had on SYN. This development had
already influenced SYNs internal balance, leading to
the empowerment of its left faction and the pursuit
of a more active role by younger cadres. After having
been squeezed for several years between the center-left
PASOKs progressive cultural agenda, and the KKEs
old-school sectarian vanguardism, SYN now adopted
a vocal anti-neoliberal agenda, articulating socioeco-
nomic as well as post-materialist demands, and directly
targeting as its main political opponent the established

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bipartisanship of PASOK and ND, in the pursuit of a
clearer and more distinct position in the political system.
The fourth congress of SYN in 2004 can be con-
sidered as a landmark in this radical transformation
and represents what is commonly described as a left
turn.29 In its political resolution the congress confirmed
as its main objective the joint action with all work-
ers, regardless of differences, to face the common big
and small problems, through [action in] trade unions,
local and regional institutions, autonomous initiatives,
social struggles and movements, and set out to form a
broader anti-neoliberal front against two-partyism.30
At the same time, SYN proposed an alternative strategy
towards socialist transition:
Our alternative proposal favors major fronts of strug-
gle to address social problems, new relations of the
political with the social and the movements, new val-
ues of solidarity, equality and justice, a new project for
environmental protection and development, the expan-
sion of traditional and new democratic and civil rights,
new perceptions of full respect for diversity against all
forms of discrimination. [Our alternative] encompasses
bold demands, structural reforms and profound in depth
changes questioning neoliberal capitalism, paving the
road to socialist transition.31
In this context, the strategy towards socialist transition
was reframed in SYNs (and consequently Syrizas)
discourse, in a way that emphasized cross-class al-
liances within a pluralist popular front that would mo-
bilize against neoliberalism and two-partyism. More-
over, the then-new leader of SYN (and predecessor
of Tsipras), Alekos Alavanos, pushed for the close
articulation of the partys left turn with a strong
and consistent appeal towards the youth (which was
described as an autonomous social category with
inter-class character32 ). Thus, Syrizas strategy was
marked by the support towards, and close interaction
with specific movements related to younger people,
the most important of which were: (i) the counter-
globalization movement, which in Greece was ex-
pressed mostly through the Social Forums; (ii) the
massive student protests in 20062007 against the con-
stitutional amendment that would allow for the estab-
lishment of private universities in Greece; and (iii) the
youth anti-authoritarian uprising in December 2008 af-
ter the killing of a 15-year-old boy by a police officer in
the center of Athens. These movements became constant
themes in SYN/Syrizas discourse and acted as symbols
of a broad anti-neoliberal struggle that the party consid-
ered necessary for the emancipation of society.
Syrizas consistent strategy was to call its members
to actively participate in these movements, not from a
vanguardist position, but as individuals who would re-
spect the movements autonomous dynamic, and at the
 Radical Left Populism in Greece: Giorgos Katsambekis
same time try to learn from them, returning to their
party with experience and knowledge that could then
help transform its identity in order to bring it closer
to society and render it more alert to the agonies and
frustrations among the social strata. This rationale was
encapsulated in the calls by Syrizas leadership to let
the movements destabilize us, to learn from the move-
ments, to act within and beside them.33 This strategy
aimed at and indeed generated a process of learning for
SYN (and Syriza), which entailed a significant renewal
on the organizational level, with younger cadres acquir-
ing key positions. Therefore, if the first level of this
strategy, from the mid-2000s, entailed the active par-
ticipation of SYN/ Syrizas members in various social
movements (identification), the second step was repre-
senting them in the central political scene, in the par-
liament as well as in media venues (representation); in
this way, Syrizas stance vis-a-vis the aganaktismenoi
that I already described earlier, followed exactly this
established pattern.
One of the declared aims of SYN/Syriza during this
initial period was the establishment of polarizations
whenever given the opportunity, in a bid to force
social subjects who were involved in various kinds of
struggles and especially the youth to take sides
and thus become actively politicized. Having diagnosed
a prevailing centrist neoliberal consensus across the
political landscape, SYN declared that it would actively
try to disturb the prevailing homogeneity of the
socio-political space, so the true dividing lines might
come to surface.34 From this point onwards SYN
and Syriza took the role of representing certain social
struggles and demands by establishing sharp us versus
them polarities, in which the us part was conceptual-
ized as those losing out and being marginalized by the
process of neoliberal globalization and deregulation
(the productive forces, the youth, the precarious, within social movements and activist initiatives, yet
the unemployed, etc.) and the them part as the few
winners and power holders (the political, economic,
media establishment, the elites, the two-party system
of PASOK-ND, the banks, the oligarchs, etc.). Thus,
Syriza openly aspired to act as a disruptive force within
the political system.
In this context, we can already recognize clear
traces of populism (or proto-populism) in SYN and
Syrizas discourse throughout the 2000s, in the sense
that the youth and the movements were functioning crisis broke, Syrizas populism was articulated from a
as empty signifiers35 as general equivalents to the
whole society and especially precarious groups ar-
ticulating around them a plurality of demands in a loose
equivalential chain36 (which included such issues as
students struggles, the labor movement, environmental
initiatives, movements for LGBT rights and gender
equality, and immigrants rights, etc.). Now, this
equivalential chain was contrasted with the various

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5
faces of the neoliberal establishment (including
bipartisanship, economic elites, the banks, the oli-
garchs, and the conservative values of the established
culture). At the same time, the ultimate objective was
recognized as the articulation of a new social unity.
A kind of unity that would represent the working
people, the vulnerable social strata, the youth, the
social groups that are marginalized.37 Lastly, Syrizas
commitment to express and represent the youth, and
to re-institute itself as a party of the young people38
was symbolized in the election of Tsipras, then aged
34, as a leader of SYN (and Syriza) in 2008.39
On the organizational level, the SYN of that pe-
riod has been described as a mass connectivity party,
a party that aspires not so much to unify but rather
to connect in a flexible way the diverse actions, ini-
tiatives and movements that embody these [political,
social, ideological and cultural anti-capitalist] expres-
sions into a stable federation, and to concern itself with
developing popular political capacities as much as with
changing state policy.40 This stable federation was
embodied in the coalition of Syriza. In this context,
at that time the most significant problem of the struc-
ture of Syriza often stressed both by opponents and
supporters seemed to be its most crucial merit: plu-
rality, heterogeneity, polyphony, openness, and a sense
of loose horizontality instead of verticality and central-
ized leadership.41 This very structure was eventually
what created the space for the coming together of all
the ideological and theoretical traditions of both the old
and new left.42 Indeed, this organizational structure
was supported by a discourse that privileged inclusivity
and polyphony.
Until the outbreak of the debt crisis in Greece, and
while having consistently followed the above strategy,
Syriza had managed to establish a strong presence
remained a marginal force, polling around 5% at the
national level. Its appeal towards the youth, precarious
groups and social movements was consistent, but failed
to lead to an electoral breakthrough. This could be
explained by the fact that the several struggles to which
Syriza appealed were fragmented, and not effectively
connected to each other, while the middle classes were
still relatively well off, maintaining their commitment
to PASOK and ND. To put it simply, up until the Greek
minoritarian position, failing to establish an effective
dialectic of representation between particularity and
universality (between the youth and the people,
between the movements and the whole society). It
is no coincidence that until 2011, Syriza had never
mentioned the possibility of exercising power, which
means they intentionally did not pursue a hegemonic
project. However, as the Greek crisis deepened and the
6 Constellations Volume 00, Number 0, 2016
austerity measures hit the majority of the population,
and especially the middle and lower social strata, the
preconditions for a unified anti-austerity movement
began to take place, pushing Syriza to articulate a
new discursive strategy. At the same time, as previously
mentioned, the parties which Syriza recognized as
the political establishment that had been rotating in
power since the mid-seventies, and its main opponents
in the political scene, were collaborating in government
under an unelected prime minister, along with an
extreme-right junior partner (LAOS). This made it
easier for Syriza to attack them as one and the same
opponent.
Peculiarities of Syrizas Minoritarian
Populism and Methodological Consequences
Syrizas populism up to this point already exhibited
some distinctive traits worth enumerating and analyz-
ing, due to their methodological and theoretical im-
plications. First, Syrizas pre-crisis populism seems
to contradict mainstream approaches that define pop-
ulism as a discourse or ideology that constructs a
homogenous and unified people, as the coalition
clearly articulated an appeal to a plural people (a
precarious people consisting of several different so-
cial groups) and expressed an effort to empower the
marginalized and excluded groups of society (partic-
ularities), which were then identified with the whole
community (universality). This type of populist inter-
pellation is very close to what Carlos de la Torre
drawing on Jacques Ranciere describes as a politics
of cultural and symbolic recognition, since it con-
sists in making what is unseen visible, in making what
was audible as mere noise heard as speech.43 Indeed,
Tsipras himself used to stress that Syrizas main aspira-
tion was to give voice to those without a voice.44
Second, we do not just encounter a certain politics
of recognition based on a pluralist worldview, but also a
politics of inclusion,45 since through their symbolic rep-
resentation as subjects that matter, various groups that
are pushed to the margins of society (such as the youth,
precarious workers or unemployed people, immigrants,
and LGTB people) are symbolically restored as equal
citizens or even as quasi-universal subjects. In this
sense, Syrizas populism (along with other instances
of the European Radical Left, especially Podemos)
disturbs the geographical differentiation put forth by
Cas Mudde and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser, that lo-
cates the inclusionary populism (of the Left) in Latin
America and the exclusionary populism (of the Right)
in Europe. Since the crisis broke Europe is becoming
a field where inclusionary egalitarian populisms seem
to gain momentum, and this should be reflected in con-
temporary research. To be sure, Luke March has already

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rightly stressed that European left-wing populism is
distinctive in the sense that it emphasizes egal-
itarianism and inclusivity rather than the openly
exclusivist anti-immigrant or anti-foreigner concerns
of right-populism (i.e. its concern is the demos not the
ethnos).46
Finally, Syrizas discourse challenges mainstream
theories on populism on another level: that of the signifi-
cation of socio-political antagonism, which is supposed
to be predominantly articulated in moralist terms be-
tween a pure people and a corrupt elite.47 Society
is indeed divided between two camps, those without
a voice and the neoliberal establishment, but this
division is understood in predominantly political and
socioeconomic terms. It is only on a secondary and
peripheral level that it is articulated using moral
terms concerning the establishments corruption, its
clientelist culture, cronyism, and so on. Furthermore,
the assumption that populism is primarily a moralist
discourse or ideology can be challenged on a more
abstract level. Namely, why are we bound to focus on
the moralistic embellishments of an antagonism that we
are supposed to find at the heart of populist discourse?
And why is this not the case with other discourses? For
example, should we simplistically describe neoliberal
parties as those in favor of private enterprise and against
the public sector or as those in favor of good private
enterprise and against a corrupt public sector? If we
opt for the first which is most often the case why
should we choose a different strategy with populism?
If we opt for the second, then these adjectives do not
apply to populism in particular but rather form part of
an antagonistic grammar in general and thus do not
offer much to the theorization of populism. Moreover,
on a methodological and practical level, how can we
establish that the moralist criterion in shaping populist
polarities is indeed prior to other criteria? Shouldnt
this be evident in the operation of specific signifiers
within a given discursive articulation? And shouldnt
this be somehow measured?
Against this widespread overreliance on moral
categories (the corrupt/evil elite versus the
good/virtuous people), a truly minimal definition
of populism, based on Laclaus remarks48 is probably
the most suitable framework through which we can
understand, analyze, and categorize specific populist
appeals. First, it does not ascribe to a populist discourse
in advance a specific content (moralist or other).
Second, it provides the tools for a proper discursive
analysis of nodal signifiers that give the tone to each
discourse and determine its contingent content (which
may indeed be a moralist one, as in the case of Podemos
in Spain, or Chavismo in Venezuela, but could also
be a primarily political one, as in the case of the early
Syriza). Last, by operating on a more abstract and
 Radical Left Populism in Greece: Giorgos Katsambekis
formalist level, such a framework better facilitates
comparative analysis through space and time.
With these observations in mind, I now proceed with
examining Syrizas discourse after the breaking of the
crisis in 20092010 and up until the crucial elections of
2015.
The Greek Crisis: Dislocation and Syrizas
New Equivalential Chains
Within the context of the multifaceted crisis that hit
Greece in 20092010, and especially after the rise of
the movement of the aganaktismenoi, which marked
the re-emergence of a new cycle of social unrest with
massive participation from trade unions, students, and
other sectors of the Greek society, Syriza articulated a
strategy that aimed at the construction of a new political
majority, which was subsequently expressed as a call for
the formation of a government of the Left. By putting
forth this broader call for a government that would in-
clude political actors beyond Syriza, the coalition for the
first time presented a hegemonic strategy and managed
to attract voters from other left parties and organiza-
tions that were investing in the hope for a progressive
unitary project to reverse austerity and tackle recession,
favoring the interests of the struggling lower and mid-
dle social strata. The coalition thus even changed its
name prior to the May 2012 elections to Syriza-EKM,
where EKM stands for Unitary Social Front, highlight-
ing an effort to represent the plurality and heterogeneity
of social and political subjects in some sort of new social
and popular unity.
It is within this context, and as social unrest was
mounting, that Syriza gradually abandoned calls to the
youth and the movements, replacing them with a more
inclusive call to the people. The unprecedented eco-
nomic, social and political crisis in Greece had already
initiated by late 2011 a twofold process that transformed
both Syrizas discourse and its virtual constituency. On
the one hand, growing impoverishment, frustration, and
anger led large sections of voters to disidentify with
their previous party preferences and enter a more fluid
stage (floating voters). On the other hand, as Syriza
realized that it could take a leap towards representing
a potential new social and political majority, it over-
whelmingly adopted in its discourse the universal sub-
ject of democratic modernity par excellence: the sig-
nifier the people. This task of representation and the
discursive passage from particularities, that worked as
quasi-equivalent to the whole society, to the direct in-
terpellation of a universal people, that integrated all
particularities in a united front, did not disturb, how-
ever, the peculiarities of Syrizas discourse concerning
its effort to bring to the center of attention those that
were pushed at the social and political margins. What it

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7
instead initiated was the call upon a diverse set of anti-
austerity struggles in a bid to articulate chains of equiva-
lence against the policies dictated by the memoranda of
austerity, and against the bipartisanship of PASOK and
ND. Hence, in the place of the struggles of the youth,
new social movements were brought to the fore.
Syrizas call upon the people and against the pro-
memorandum establishment was thus combined after
2009 with highlighting particular struggles that acted as
symbols of a generalized front against austerity, state
repression, antidemocratic tendencies and neoliberal-
ism. These struggles were highlighted as intensified mo-
ments of a broader antagonism, and were thus horizon-
tally linked in a generalized social/popular front against
austerity and the governments that had supported it.
The most significant among these struggles with
which Syriza interacted were: the environmental strug-
gle of villagers in Skouries, Halkidiki (northern Greece)
against mining activity that had serious consequences
for the environment of their region;49 the anti-landfill
protests on the outskirts of Athens in Keratea, which
had been met with unprecedented police brutality;50 the
so called I Am Not Paying (Den plirono) move-
ment, a civil disobedience movement that focused on the
dramatic rise of road tolls at Greeces national roads,51
operated by private companies (then developing into a
broader movement against all sorts of private debt that
was considered socially unfair);52 the struggle of em-
ployees of the public broadcaster after it was suddenly
shut down by Antonis Samaras government in June
2013, resulting in the loss of nearly 2700 jobs;53 and
the struggle of the cleaning ladies who were placed in
a state of mobility in September 2013 and then fired
from the Ministry of Finance.54 These cleaning ladies,
as was the case with the working people in ERT, rep-
resented in Syrizas discourse the struggle of thousands
of public sector employees who were laid off in order
to fulfill the conditions for the bailout instalments for
Greece to keep coming:
The heroic cleaning ladies of the Ministry of Finance
show the only possible way for our people but also for
people all over Europe: the path of disobedience and
struggle, the way towards a progressive subversion!55
Syriza thus employed a very similar strategy to that it
had deployed with the youth in the past, and linked
particular struggles to its broader popular/social front
against austerity and the political establishment.
Prefiguring an Alternative to Austerity;
Capturing Power
Yet interpellating the people and calling for the oust-
ing of the austerity governments was only one com-
ponent of Syrizas successful populist strategy, since the
8 Constellations Volume 00, Number 0, 2016
party at the same time tried to put forth its own radi-
cal alternative. In this effort, Syriza embraced most of
the demands of popular anti-austerity movements and
the various local struggles. Its program was based on
an alternative mixture of economic and social policies,
mainly of a neo-Keynesian and social-democratic char-
acter, involving a decisive break with the politics of
austerity and a renegotiation of the Greek public debt.
In May and June 2012, Syriza called for a broad coali-
tion, a front among the parties and organizations left
of PASOK that would lead to a government of the left,
which would fight to annul the memoranda, while secur-
ing Greeces place within the Eurozone; that would raise
taxation on big business and the rich, put the banking
sector under social control, call a moratorium on debt
repayment until the Greek economy started to grow, pro-
vide universal access to welfare, and scrap salary cuts
and emergency taxes.56 Renewed democracy in itself,
popular sovereignty, social and human rights formed
significant pillars of Syrizas alternative program, rep-
resenting the central demand of the aganaktismenoi.
The sixth pillar of Syrizas Electoral Declaration read
Democracy everywhere. Democratic political and so-
cial rights for all.57 On the basis of this program, Syriza
set out to stage, once more, the ultimate antagonism in
the Greek society, pitting the people against the two-
party establishment:
They decided without us, we move on without them.
The upcoming highly critical elections will determine
the present and the future of the country. NOW is the
time for the struggles of our people to be vindicated,
for two-partyism to be punished and defeated, for the
memoranda and the troika to be condemned. A new
social and political majority, with the radical Left in
its core, can overthrow the rotten two-party political
system and create alternative governance structures,
where the people will be a protagonist.58
Further on in the Declaration, the call for the re-assertion
of the people as sovereign is emphatically repeated:
Now, the people are voting! Now the people are taking
power! In these elections [the people] can and should
close a sad parenthesis with their vote; [they can] end
the regime of the memoranda and the troika and open
a new page of hope and optimism for the future.59
The terms of this antagonism are clarified in the text.
The enemy of the people is named as this particular
economic and social system, which is part of global-
ized capitalism and which understands speculation and
profit as the proper way to organize society.60 The ones
that are profiting from this system are also named: pri-
vate banks and bankers, big businessmen, international
speculators, and big industrialists. Thus the very terms
of societys division between two antagonistic camps
between the few, who are profiting, and the many, who

C 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
are losing is primarily cast along ideologico-political
terms: it is the very logic of profit and individualism that
lies in the heart of contemporary globalized capitalism
that Syriza recognizes as the main problem, and not the
corrupt or evil nature of the elites. Or, to paraphrase
Mudde, the main division here is one of interests, not
morality.61 Thus, for Syriza, a socialism with freedom,
a fully blossoming democracy where all citizens partic-
ipate in decision making is the strategic aim.62 A last
but very crucial element that should be stressed about
the pre-electoral period of 2012 is that this was the first
time that Syriza put forth a straightforward claim to
power.63 Until then, the ultimate aim was a strong, fight-
ing opposition that could act as a disruptive force within
parliament, trying to block certain policies. From that
point on, the aim was changed to a complete rupture, a
break with the previous order, indeed, a paradigm shift.
Syriza lost the 2012 elections by a few thousand
votes, but managed to maintain its upward dynamic.
Only two years later, and having become a unified party,
it managed to surpass the then-incumbent ND in the
European elections of May 2014 (by 26.56% to
22.72%). Syriza maintained a narrative that combined a
passionate rejection of the establishment with a strong
demand for a fairer redistribution of wealth, power, and
rights, purporting to return power to the people. The
central slogan of Syrizas campaign in 2014 was charac-
teristic: Our patience is over. On May 25 we vote, they
leave.64 The people in its plurality, workers, farm-
ers, the youth, the unemployed, pensioners, craftsmen,
intellectuals,65 were called upon to unite and to claim
a protagonist position in a new political era for Greece.
This protagonist position was articulated around an al-
ternative program which emphasized the following key
objectives: (i) the immediate end to the humanitarian
crisis, (ii) the satisfaction of social needs, (iii) the re-
construction of the productive sectors, (iv) the reinvigo-
ration of democracy, (v) the redistribution of wealth,
(vi) the expansion of social and collective rights.66
The European elections were seen as the chance for
the Greek people to highlight the incompatibility of
the governments politics with the popular will, but
also as a chance to show to the peoples of Europe that
there could be an alternative to austerity, triggering a
wave of pan-European change.67 The ending statement
of Syrizas campaign leaflet for this election highlighted
the antagonism that the party tried to establish during
its campaign, while it also illustrated the way in which
its discourse was affectively invested, with strong lan-
guage that purported to generate both negative passions
of rejection (against pro-austerity forces) and positive
ones, of hope (projected on Syriza):
This May belongs to the people. We can and we must
win . . . . Lets end those that supported or tolerated
 Radical Left Populism in Greece: Giorgos Katsambekis
the memoranda, the troikas, the austerity, racism, and
fascism. Citizens of Greece, peoples of Europe, unite!
So that we can put an end to the degradation of our life.
To regain democracy.68
After coming first in the European elections, and as
Greece had practically entered a new pre-electoral
period with a crumbling ND and PASOK coalition
government, Syriza focused on representing in its dis-
course a convincing alternative program. The key sig-
nifier in this optimistic and forward-looking new cam-
paign was hope, an empty signifier par excellence
(Hope is coming: Greece moves on. Europe changes
read the main slogan69 ). The passionate rejection of bi-
partisanship and austerity and the strong emphasis on
what the Greek people had lost during the years of the
crisis (emphasized in 2012 and 2014), was replaced
with the prefiguration of a possible and hopeful alterna-
tive that would mean better days for the majority of the
have-nots and a chance for the few haves to pay their
fair share. The most emblematic moment of this cam-
paign was the so-called Programme of Thessaloniki,
which was presented by Tsipras in September 2014, at
a time when Syriza was demanding immediate parlia-
mentary elections.70 The basic pillars of the program
were in line with the rhetoric the party had espoused in
previous campaigns: 1st: confronting the humanitarian
crisis, 2nd: restarting the economy and promoting tax
justice, 3rd: increasing employment, 4th: transforming
the political system to deepen democracy.71
During this long campaign leading to the election
of January 2015, Syriza further developed its call to
restore the people as sovereign against the established
oligarchy, staging a sharp antagonism between the
vast majority of the people and a privileged minority
that was profiting from the crisis. The concise program
of Syriza opened with an excerpt from Tsipras speech:
We are counting on you. Not on the oligarchy . . . . On
the sovereign people.72 The inclusivity and universality
of this appeal was often stressed with the utilization
of the most characteristic slogan of the Occupy Wall
Street movement: We represent the interests of the 99%
of the people that are paying taxes, New Democracy
[represents] the 1% that hides, that has high incomes
and evades tax;73 or We have a plan and we pledge: to
protect the 99% of society that has been looted by the
Memorandum, and to find the 1% that systematically
evades taxation and make it pay.74
With its main opponent, ND, campaigning solely on
the alleged dangers and catastrophic risks that a Syriza
government would mean for Greece, conveying thus an
utterly negative message that built on fear, Syriza man-
aged to articulate a colorful and optimistic campaign
that promised a relief from constant austerity and a more
active role of the citizens in decision making. After
five years of social devastation and fear for a looming

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9
bankruptcy, Greek voters chose hope over fear in
the election of January 2015, giving Syriza an over-
whelming victory over ND (36.34% to 27.81%). Syriza
then immediately formed a coalition government with
the Independent Greeks (ANEL), a small anti-austerity
populist and nationalist right-wing party. The new
government was soon faced with a series of difficulties
and impasses that eventually led Syriza to drop most of
its pre-electoral promises and pledge to continue aus-
terity in July 2015, signing yet a new bail-out deal with
the European institutions. However, Syrizas discourse
and strategy when in power is something that, due to
space limitations, cannot be dealt with in this article.75
Concluding Remarks
Overall, Syrizas short march to power presents a unique
case of successful left-wing populism in Europe; a kind
of populism that has been both inclusionary and egali-
tarian. In its eleven years of existence, first as a loose
coalition and then as a unified party, Syriza managed to
expand in an impressive way, emerging from the mar-
gins of the political system to become a governing party.
One of the most crucial elements in understanding its
novel character and also its unique dynamic is the de-
velopment of its populism from 2004 onwards. First
articulated as a minoritarian populism, it called upon a
heterogeneous plurality of social movements espe-
cially the youth in order to challenge the neoliberal
agenda of the center-left and center-right parties that
dominated Greeces political system. The youth were
portrayed as an inter-class collective subject and a pre-
figuration of generalized marginalization and precarity,
symptoms soon extending to the majority of citizens in
Greece. In this way, it functioned as a general equiv-
alent to the people, staging strong opposition to the
two-party establishment and the elites.
As the crisis deepened after 2009, Syriza claimed
that its warnings had come true and it embraced a se-
ries of anti-austerity struggles against the governments
of PASOK and ND. The massive movement of the
squares in May 2011 exemplified to Syriza a deep cri-
sis of representation within the Greek political system,
and thus a new social majority that was seeking chan-
nels of institutional representation. Its strategy from this
point onwards was to articulate the plurality of social
demands, struggles, and identities that were mobilizing
against austerity in a new form of popular unity. This
endeavor was eventually successful, since Syriza was
the only party that managed to articulate an alterna-
tive to austerity, building on positive passions of hope
and bringing back the redemptive side of democratic
politics.76
In this context, the study of Syriza and a better under-
standing of the particularities of its populist character
are significant for both the study of the radical left party
10 Constellations Volume 00, Number 0, 2016
family in crisis-hit Europe, but also for the study and
theory of populism in general.
On the theoretical and methodological level, Syrizas
populism presents a challenge to mainstream theories of
populism that understand it as an ideology or discourse
that operates primarily on a moralist level and creates
a homogeneous people. The antagonisms playing out
in Syrizas discourse were first and foremost signified
in political and socioeconomic terms, presenting the
various stakes as connected with specific ideologico-
political traditions and diverging or conflicting pro-
grammatic agendas (i.e. neoliberalism versus social-
ism of the twenty-first century, and the interests of
the have-nots versus those of the haves). Second, the
people was portrayed as a plural and heterogeneous
collective subject that was partly unified against an es-
tablishment that threatened its well-being. Partial unifi-
cation and horizontal articulation, in the terms described
by Laclau, is thus a more accurate way to describe this
kind of unity, which by no means is the same as homo-
geneity.
Furthermore, the choreography of events that lead
to the rise of Syriza and its march to power confirm
Laclaus theory on the terms of emergence and success
of a populist rupture; another reason why his the-
oretical toolkit is key to understanding contemporary
populist movements around the world. In other words,
Laclaus theory on populism does not only provide the
tools for identifying, understanding and critically as-
sessing a populist movement. It also provides a theoret-
ical model that can help us understand its conditions of
emergence and success, as well as its prospects to effec-
tively articulate a counter-hegemonic project. As Laclau
has noted, a situation in which a plurality of unsatisfied
demands and an increasing inability of the institutional
system to absorb them differentially coexist, creates the
conditions leading to a populist rupture.77
But Laclaus theory also offers the tools for formu-
lating meaningful hypotheses on possible (democratic
or non-democratic) futures and the prospects of consol-
idation for a successful and hegemonic populist project
of the Left. This, according to Laclau, is premised on a
sensitive balance between horizontality and verticality,
or autonomy and hegemony.78 The ability to creatively
balance these two dimensions of social and political ac-
tion is what holds the key for keeping a populist project
open and democratic.79 In this context, it may not be a
coincidence that right after the submission of Syriza to
the pressures of its European partners and thus to the
new austerity agenda, in July 2015 the party has become
indeed much more vertical and leader-centric, down-
playing its calls to the social movements (that now often
mobilize against the Syriza-ANEL government), under-
mining internal democracy and polyphony, and putting
forth a more pragmatic technical discourse which

C 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
focuses on implementing the new austerity program in
an allegedly fairer way. Nevertheless, the fact that,
even after accepting a new austerity package, Syriza
managed to win a snap election in September 2015 with-
out losing ground shows that the party until recently
still enjoyed some popular support and that its bonds of
representation with significant segments of Greek soci-
ety might still hold. This bond is, nevertheless, rather
precarious, as the consequences of the new austerity
measures dictated by the so-called third memoran-
dum have just started to kick in.
Now, the task of further research is to critically assess
Syrizas populism while in power, which, according to
some researchers, has somewhat evaporated, to pave
the way for a period of normalization.80 Moreover, fu-
ture research should account for the increasingly moral-
ist character of Syrizas discourse after its ascension to
power, which was particularly evident during the cam-
paign for the snap election of September 2015, as well
as during the first months of its second term in office.
NOTES
I would like to thank the Research Committee of the
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki for its support through the
Excellence Scholarship. I thank Lasse Thomassen, Aurelien
Mondon, Paul Lucardie and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser for
their constructive comments on earlier versions of this article.
Lastly, I wish to acknowledge my debt to my colleagues at the
POPULISMUS project (www.populismus.gr), for the past two
years of creative collaboration and exchange.
1. For recent significant contributions see: Luke March,
Radical Left Parties in Europe (London: Routledge, 2011);
Myrto Tsakatika and Marco Lisi (eds) Transformations of the
Radical Left in Southern Europe (London: Routledge, 2014);
Kate Hudson, The New European Left (London: Palgrave,
2012).
2. In this sense the scope of this article is much broader
that the study of Yannis Stavrakakis and Giorgos Katsambekis,
which focuses more on the discourse of Syriza during the
2012 election campaign. See Yannis Stavrakakis and Giorgos
Katsambekis, Left-wing Populism in the European Periphery:
The Case of Syriza, Journal of Political Ideologies 19 (2014):
11942.
3. Cas Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Cas Mudde
and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser, Populism and (Liberal)
Democracy: a Framework for Analysis, in Populism in
Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democ-
racy?, eds. Cas Mudde and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 126; Stijn
van Kessel, The Populist Cat-Dog: Applying the Concept
of Populism to Contemporary European Party Systems,
Journal of Political Ideologies 19 (2014): 99118; Matthijs
Rooduijn, The Nucleus of Populism: In Search of the Lowest
Common Denominator, Government and Opposition 49
(2014): 57399.
4. Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason (London: Verso,
2005); Ernesto Laclau, Populism: Whats in a Name?, in
Populism and the Mirror of Democracy, ed. Francisco Panizza
(London: Verso, 2005), 3249; Stavrakakis and Katsambekis,
Left-wing Populism.
 Radical Left Populism in Greece: Giorgos Katsambekis
5. Stavrakakis and Katsambekis, Left-wing Populism,
1214.
6. The three most significant recent collective works
point exactly towards this consensus: Francisco Panizza, ed.,
Populism and the Mirror of Democracy (London: Verso, 2005);
Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, Populism in Europe and the
Americas; Carlos de la Torre, ed., The Promise and the Perils
of Populism (Lexington Kentucky: University Press of Ken-
tucky, 2015).
7. Stavrakakis and Katsambekis, Left-wing Populism,
123.
8. Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, Populism and (Lib-
eral) Democracy. See also Kirk Hawkins, Venezuelas Chav-
ismo and Populism in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010); van Kessel, The Populist
Cat-Dog; Rooduijn, The Nucleus of Populism.
9. See Ernesto Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist
Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism (London: New Left
Books, 1977), 1723; Ernesto Laclau, Populist Rupture and
Discourse, Screen Education 34 (1980): 8793.
10. I am paraphrasing Muddes definition without the
unnecessary adjectives. See Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser,
Populism and (Liberal) Democracy, 8; also Stavrakakis and
Katsambekis, Left-wing Populism, 122.
11. Margaret Canovan, Trust the People! Populism and
the Two Faces of Democracy, Political Studies 47 (1999): 3.
12. Michalis Spourdalakis, The Miraculous Rise of
the Phenomenon Syriza, International Critical Thought 4
(2014): 3546.
13. Christos Lyrintzis, The Changing Party Sys-
tem: Stable Democracy, Contested Modernisation, West
European Politics 28 (2005): 24259; Giorgos Katsambekis,
The Place of the People in Post-Democracy: Researching An-
tipopulism and Post-Democracy in Crisis-Ridden Greece,
POSTData 19 (2014): 55582.
14. Katsambekis, The Place of the People.
15. Giorgos Katsambekis, The Multitudinous Mo-
ment(s) of the People: Democratic Agency Disrupting Es-
tablished Binarisms, in Radical Democracy and Collective
Movements Today, eds. Alexandros Kioupkiolis and Giorgos
Katsambekis (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 1804.
16. Marina Prentoulis and Lasse Thomassen, Politi-
cal Theory in the Square: Protest, Representation and Sub-
jectification, Contemporary Political Theory 12 (2013):
175.
17. Alexandros Kioupkiolis, Podemos: the Ambiguous
Promises of Left-Wing Populism in Contemporary Spain,
Journal of Political Ideologies 21 (2016): 99120.
18. A telling gesture of Syriza was the submission by its
leader, within parliamentary procedure, of a topical question
to the Prime Minister with the subject True Democracy,
only a few days after the movement of the squares had erupted
in Greece. In this question Tsipras was echoing the concerns
and demands of the thousands of people in the squares
and public places [who had been] marching for two weeks
daily with demands for: real democracy, dignity and reversal
of the policies of the Memorandum and neoliberalism.
Alexis Tsipras, Topical Question Addressed to the Prime
Minister with the Subject Real Democracy, June 7, 2011,
accessed March 1, 2015, http://www.syriza.gr/article/id/
43646/O-Proedros-ths-Koinoboyleytikhs-Omadas-toy-
Synaspismoy-Rizospastikhs-Aristeras-Alekshs-Tsipras-
katethese-Epikairh-Erwthsh-ston-Prwthypoyrgo-me-thema:-
%C2%ABPragmatikh-Dhmokratia%C2%BB [in Greek].
19. SYN, Decision of the Central Committee, May
29, 2011, accessed March 1, 2015, http://www.syn.gr/gr/
keimeno.php?id=23312 [in Greek].

C 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
11
20. Alexis Tsipras, Statement after the Meeting be-
tween Political Leaders chaired by the President of the
Hellenic Republic, May 27, 2011, accessed March 1, 2015,
http://www.syn.gr/gr/keimeno.php?id=23278 [in Greek].
21. Syriza, Political Resolution of the 4th
PanHellenic Conference, July 17, 2011, accessed March
1, 2015, http://www.syriza.gr/article/id/43906/POLITIKH-
APOFASH-4hs-PANELLADIKHS-SYNDIASKEPSHS-
TOY-SYRIZA.html#.VRG39_msWAU [in Greek].
22. Alexis Tsipras Speech during the 4th Panhellenic
Conference of Syriza, July 16, 2011, accessed March 1, 2015,
http://www.syn.gr/gr/keimeno.php?id=23795 [in Greek].
23. Syriza, Political Resolution of the 4th Panhellenic
Conference.
24. In Laclaus words: An institutional system becomes
less and less able to differentially absorb social demands and
this leads to an internal chasm within society and the con-
struction of two antagonistic chains of equivalences. This is
the classical experience of a populist or revolutionary rupture,
which results generally from the type of crisis of representation
that Gramsci called organic crises. Laclau, Populism, 46.
25. See Myrto Tsakatika and Costas Eleftheriou, The
Radical Lefts Turn towards Civil Society in Greece, South
European Society and Politics 18 (2013): 81100.
26. In this context, Sofia Vasilopoulou, Daphne
Halikiopoulou and Theofanis Exadaktylos study of party dis-
courses from December 2009 to December 2011 shows that
during that period Syriza blamed PASOK overwhelmingly
and significantly more than the other fringe parties, while it
also focused on PASOK and ND combined, blaming the po-
litical system that had been dominated by these two parties
for over three decades. Sofia Vasilopoulou et al. Greece in
Crisis: Austerity, Populism and the Politics of Blame, Journal
of Common Market Studies, 52 (2014): 397.
27. Myrto Tsakatika and Marco Lisi, Zippin up My
Boots, Goin Back to My Roots: Radical Left Parties in South-
ern Europe, South European Society and Politics 18 (2013):
119.
28. Tsakatika and Eleftheriou, The Radical Lefts
Turn, 90.
29. Costas Eleftheriou, The Uneasy Symbiosis. Fac-
tionalism and Radical Politics in Synaspismos (paper pre-
pared for presentation at the 4th Hellenic Observatory PhD
Symposium, London School of Economics, June 2526, 2009),
1218.
30. SYN, Political Resolution of the 4th Congress,
December 912, 2004, accessed February 2, 2016,
http://www.syn.gr/downloads/apofasi4ou.pdf, 6, 11 [in
Greek].
31. Ibid., 7.
32. SYN, Decision of the Central Committee. The Left
and the Youth: a Dynamic Relationship, a Relationship of Sub-
version, September 1718, 2005, accessed March 1, 2015,
http://www.syn.gr/gr/keimeno.php?id=7225 [in Greek].
33. Alekos Alavanos, With Synaspismos, for the
Revolutionary Humanist Socialist Values, November 7,
2004, accessed March 1, 2015, http://www.syn.gr/gr/keimeno.
php?id=5682 [in Greek]; Synaspismos, Political resolution
of the 4th Congress.
34. SYN, Decision of the Central Committee. The Left
and the Youth.
35. Laclau, Populism, 413.
36. Ibid, 37.
37. Alexis Tsipras, Speech at the 5th Congress of
SYN, February 9, 2008, accessed March 1, 2015, http://www.
syn.gr/gr/keimeno.php?id=8951.
38. Alavanos, With Synaspismos.
12 Constellations Volume 00, Number 0, 2016
39. Yannis Balafas, a party official and MP of SYN and
Syriza, describes the election of Tsipras in SYNs leadership
as part of the opening up to the youth that was organized by
Alavanos leadership between 2004 and 2008. Yannis Balafas,
It Took 20 Years. The Chronicle of the Venture of Synaspismos
(Athens: Nisos, 2012), 35460 [in Greek].
40. Michalis Spourdalakis, Left Strategy in the Greek
Cauldron: Explaining Syrizas Success, Socialist Register 49
(2013): 103.
41. Myrto Tsakatika and Costas Eleftheriou describe this
as a double-edged sword, which, despite some advantages,
could not bring concrete results in terms of a broad and firmly
consolidated appeal to new voters. Tsakatika and Eleftheriou,
The Radical Lefts Turn, 923. decisions. Syriza, Announcement by the Press Office of
42. Spourdalakis, The Miraculous Rise, 359.
43. Carlos de la Torre, Introduction: Power to the
People? Populism, Insurrections, Democratization, in The
Promise and the Perils of Populism, 8.
44. Alexis Tsipras, Speech at the Central Pre-electoral
Rally of Syriza in Pireus, May 11, 2009, accessed March
1, 2015, http://www.syn.gr/gr/keimeno.php?id=14708 [in
Greek]; Alexis Tsipras, Speech at Peristeri/Athens, Novem-
ber 12, 2008, accessed March 1, 2015, http://www.syn.gr/
gr/keimeno.php?id=12293 [in Greek]; also Syriza, Polit-
ical Framework for the European Elections, 2009, ac-
cessed March 1, 2015, http://www.syn.gr/gr/keimeno.php?id=
14816 [in Greek].
45. See Cas Mudde and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser,
Exclusionary vs. Inclusionary Populism: Comparing Contem-
porary Europe and Latin America, Government and Opposi-
tion 48 (2013): 14774.
46. March, Radical Left Parties in Europe, 122.
47. Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, Populism and
(Liberal) Democracy, p. 8.
48. See Stavrakakis and Katsambekis, Left-wing
Populism.
49. Savas Michael-Matsas, Greece at the Boiling
Point, Critique 41 (2013): 439.
50. The inhabitants of Keratea town and the sur-
rounding villages in the south of Athens revolted against the
governments plans to construct a new landfill in their area.
This was one of the first major acts of resistance against the
government since the loan agreement with IMF/EU/ECB
(May 2010), and so the authorities demonstrated a profound
commitment to enforcing the governmental decision and
the interests of the corporation contracted to construct the
landfill. Dimitris Dalakoglou, Neo-Nazism and Neolib-
eralism, Working USA 16 (2013): 291. In January, and
as tensions were high, Tsipras declared that Syriza will
support . . . the struggle of residents in Keratea and else-
where, claiming quality of life against an unreliable state.
Alexis Tsipras, Statements after the Meeting with the
Executive Committee of the Panhellenic Federation of Local
Authorities Workers, January, 12 2011, accessed March
1, 2015, http://www.syriza.gr/article/id/42618/Dhlwseis-
toy-Proedroy-ths-K.O.-toy-SYRIZA-Aleksh-Tsipra-meta-
th-synanthsh-toy-me-thnEktelestikh-Epitroph-thsPOE-
OTA-.html#.VR_mG_msWAU [in Greek].
51. Christos Lyrintzis, Greek Politics in the Era of Eco-
nomic Crisis, GreeSE Paper 45, Hellenic Observatory Papers
on Greece and Southeast Europe (2011), 21.
52. Vasiliki Triga, Social Protest through Facebook
in the Greek Context: the Case of the I Dont Pay
Movement, Journal of Critical Studies in Business and
Society 2 (2011): 5173. Syriza stressed the need for
social and political fronts with subversive direction in order
to reverse the destructive course of the country and to

C 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
return the Greek people at the forefront of developments.
Syriza, Meeting of the Movement I Dont Pay-Unified
Front with Syriza, December 17, 2014, accessed March
1, 2015, http://www.syriza.gr/article/id/59585/Synanthsh-
toy-Kinhmatos-Den-Plhrwnw-Eniaio-Metwpo-me-ton-
SYRIZA.html#.VR_oLPmsWAU [in Greek].
53. BBC, ERT closure: Greek parties urge change
of course, June 12, 2013, accessed March 1, 2015,
www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22871734. For Syriza,
[t]he struggle of the workers of ERT is a symbol of
the struggles against the memoranda and a defence of
democracy. Syriza-EKM expresses once again its solidarity
with the workers of ERT and supports their struggles and
Syriza-EKM, June 18, 2013, accessed March 1, 2015,
http://www.syriza.gr/article/id/50746/Anakoinwsh-toy-
Grafeioy-Typoy-toy-SYRIZA-EKMSthriksh-ston-agwna-
kai-tis-apofaseis-twn-ergazomenwn-ths-ERTParanomei-o-
Prwthypoyrgos-.html#.VR_sjPmsWAU [in Greek].
54. Brigitte Marti, In Athens, Women Cleaners
Reject Austeritys Mess, April 6, 2014, accessed March 1,
2015, http://www.womeninandbeyond.org/?p=11785; Syriza,
Statement of Support to the Cleaning Ladies the Ministry of
Finance, June 23, 2014, accessed March 1, 2015, www.syriza.
gr/article/id/56839/Dhlwsh-symparastashs-stis-katharistries-
toy-Yp.-Oikonomikwn-.html#.VR_rbfmsWAV [in Greek].
55. Department of Labour, Syriza, Huge International
Solidarity Movement in the Heroic Struggle of Cleaners!,
September 18, 2014, accessed March 1, 2015, http://www.
syriza.gr/article/id/58036/Gigantwnetai-to-diethnes-kinhma-
symparastashs-stonhrwiko-agwna-twn-katharistriwn!
Oloi-kai-oles23-Septembrh-ston-Areio-Pago-stis-9:30-to-
prwi!.html#.VR_vf_msWAU [in Greek].
56. Stavrakakis and Katsambekis, Left-wing Pop-
ulism, 126.
57. Syriza-EKM, Electoral Declaration, AprilMay
2012, accessed March 1, 2015, http://www.syn.gr/ekl2012/
eklogikidiak2012.pdf, 4, [in Greek].
58. Ibid., 1.
59. Ibid., 6.
60. Ibid., 6, 2.
61. Cas Mudde, The Power of Populism? Not Really!,
February 13, 2016, accessed May 28, 2016, http://www.
huffingtonpost.com/cas-mudde/the-power-of-populism-
not_b_9226736.html.
62. Syriza-EKM, Electoral Declaration, 6.
63. E.g. Alexis Tsipras, Press Conference at
Zappeio, April 29, 2012, accessed March 1, http://www.
syn.gr/gr/keimeno.php?id=26958 [in Greek]; Alexis Tsipras,
Speech at the Central Pre-election Rally of Syriza in
Athens, June 14, 2012, accessed March 1, http://www.syn.
gr/gr/keimeno.php?id=27375 [in Greek].
64. Syriza, We Vote for Greece. We Vote for An-
other Europe, May 2014, accessed March 1, 2015,
http://www.syriza.gr/upload/55681_1.pdf [in Greek].
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid.
68. Ibid.
69. See Syrizas poster for the elections of January
2015, accessed March 1, 2015, http://www.syriza.gr/
article/id/59821/H-ELPIDA-ERCHETAI.html#.VS-
QVvmsWAU.
70. Syriza, The Thessaloniki Programme, September
2014, accessed March 1, 2015, http://www.syriza.gr/article/
SYRIZATHE-THESSALONIKI-PROGRAMME.html#.
V20Fj_mLS00.
 Radical Left Populism in Greece: Giorgos Katsambekis
71. Ibid.
72. Syriza, Framework of Government Programme,
January 2015, accessed March 1, 2015, http://www.syriza.
gr/upload/60147_1.pdf [in Greek].
73. Alexis Tsipras, Interview with Maria Choukli,
ANT1 Channel, January 19, 2015, accessed March 1,
2015, http://www.syriza.gr/article/id/60174/[Binteo]
Synenteyksh-toy-Proedroy-toy-SYRIZA-Aleksh-
Tsipra-stonANT1-sth-dhmosiografo-Maria-CHoyklh-
.html#.VSJ94PmsWAU [in Greek].
74. Alexis Tsipras, Speech in Athens, January
22, 2015, accessed March 1, 2015, http://www.syriza.
gr/article/id/60228/[Binteo-kai-Fwtografies]-Omilia-toy-
Proedroy-toy-SYRIZA-Aleksh-Tsipra-sthn-Athhna.html#.
VSJ_pfmsWAU [in Greek].
75. Syrizas development and transformation after
climbing to power is an issue that should motivate fu-
ture research. From the standpoint of discourse analysis,
we can already discern two different phases: the first term
(January 2015 to August 2015) and the second term in office
(September 2015 to today). Syrizas official discourse dur-
ing the first term remained defiant and aggressive towards the
domestic establishment, but also towards Greeces lenders.
Syrizas calls for a protagonist position of the people even
materialized, with the call for a referendum in July 2015 on
the bailout terms proposed to Greece. However, things changed
after Syrizas leadership decided to capitulate and accept a new
bailout agreement, a new memorandum, right after the refer-
endum. So during the second term in office, Syrizas discourse
has become more managerial and was attached to the workings
of the state, in an effort to justify the new austerity measures
and the need for the Left to remain in power (so that it can
implement austerity with social fairness, while managing pub-
lic administration in a more efficient and transparent manner).
Nevertheless, references to the people and the importance
of popular sovereignty and equality are still quite prominent.
The same is true regarding the attacks on the establishment,
which remain fierce (especially against the media establish-
ment). So Syrizas discourse still seems populist. The crucial
difference, though, is that the antagonisms put forth in the

C 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
13
partys discourse, after taking power (and especially during its
second term), have become much more moralistic, focusing
on the corruption of the old party establishment, of the main-
stream media and of a nexus of interrelated vested interests
that are used to profiting at the expense of the vast majority
of society (what in Greek is called diaploki). So, to return
to my critique on scholars who insist on the moralist nature
of populism, the question that we should ask here is rather:
when, and under which conditions does a populist discourse
become primarily moralist? An examination of Syrizas pas-
sage from opposition to power could provide crucial answers
to this question.
76. Canovan, Trust the People!.
77. Laclau, Populism, 38. To be fair, a significant
part of the literature points at this very condition, which
has to do with some sort of unresponsiveness of the estab-
lished political forces or a crisis of representation. See Ken-
neth Roberts, Populism, Political Mobilizations, and Crises
of Political Representation, in The Promise and the Per-
ils of Populism, ed. de la Torre, 14750; Stijn van Kessel,
Populist Parties in Europe: Agents of Discontent? (London:
Palgrave, 2015).
78. See also Prentoulis and Thomassen, Political The-
ory in the Square.
79. Ernesto Laclau, The Rhetorical Foundations of
Society (London: Verso, 2014), 89.
80. Paris Aslanidis, and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser,
Dealing with Populists in Government: the Syriza-
ANEL Coalition in Greece, Democratization (2016)
DOI:10.1080/13510347.2016.1154842.
Giorgos Katsambekis is a postdoctoral researcher at
the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His articles and
reviews have appeared in a variety of journals, such as
the Journal of Political Ideologies, European Political
Science, and Political Studies Review. He has recently
co-edited the volume Radical Democracy and Collec-
tive Movements Today (Ashgate, 2014).