https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:09 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 https://toarcheio.org/items/paradoxes-of-polarization-democracys-inherent-division-and-the-anti-populist-challenge/ Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:09 +0000 https://toarcheio.org/items/paradoxes-of-polarization-democracys-inherent-division-and-the-anti-populist-challenge/ Continued]]> This article carries out a theoretical analysis of the relationship between democracy and polarization. It utilizes examples from a variety of premodern and modern societies to argue that difference and division are inherent to a vibrant democratic life and to representation itself. At the same time, a stable and pluralist democratic culture presupposes the establishment of a common ground required for reflexive democratic decision making. To take into account both requirements, this must be a special type of common ground: an agonistic common ground. Agonism, as opposed to both the politics of raw antagonism and the postpolitics of consensus, values the existence of real alternatives and even ideological distance but aims at sublimating their pernicious effects. However, an agonistic outcome is always the result of a delicate balancing act between oligarchic and populist tendencies. In modernity, it predominantly took the form of a paradoxical blend of the democratic and the liberal tradition. The current crisis of liberal democracy and its postdemocratic mutation obliges one to ask whether democratic crisis may cause polarization, rather than the other way around, and puts in doubt the ability of the “moderate center” to deal with it in ways consolidating democracy. The article illustrates its theoretical rationale with examples from populism/antipopulism polarization in contemporary Greece, where elite-driven antipopulist discourse has consistently employed dehumanizing repertoires enhancing pernicious polarization.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/dynamics-of-polarization-in-the-greek-case/ Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:07 +0000 https://toarcheio.org/items/dynamics-of-polarization-in-the-greek-case/ Continued]]> This article focuses on the dynamics of polarization emerging within Greek political culture in the postauthoritarian setting. Following a brief historical framing, we trace Left–Right polarization between the two major parties of the period: Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and New Democracy (ND). The party-based polarization of PASOK/ND was arguably the main axis of political antagonism in Greece from the 1970s until the end of the 2000s. By 2009, polarization had ebbed due to an ideological convergence of the two parties toward the center, but the onset of the 2009 economic crisis dislocated the established two-party system and facilitated the emergence of a new political landscape comprising many new political actors, most notably the Coalition of the Radical Left, SYRIZA. Using a predominantly quantitative methodology, we focus on a set of dimensions of polarization brought forward or re-activated within the context of economic crisis.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/new-facets-of-urban-segregation-in-southern-europe-gender-migration-and-social-class-change-in-athens/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:06 +0000 http://arc.local/items/new-facets-of-urban-segregation-in-southern-europe-gender-migration-and-social-class-change-in-athens/ Continued]]> This article explores how primary features of occupational restructuring, such as the feminization of employment and migration, and changes in patterns of residential mobility of Greek and migrant women since the 1990s have contributed to shaping new forms of sociospatial segregation in Athens.We examine changes in the occupational structure and in segregation indices from 1991 to 2001. Findings suggest that new gender and ethnic divisions in the occupational structure combine with residential
mobility and introduce strong tendencies towards spatial fragmentation. Intra-urban and migratory flows reflect diversified occupational trajectories among women and contribute to shaping the socioeconomic profile of the destination areas: (a) migrant domestic and unskilled service workers locate to central city and suburban areas; (b)Greek managers and professionals, move to ‘upper-class suburbs’; (c) small Greek entrepreneurs and independent workers sprawl to peri-urban areas; (d) salespersons and clerks move to inner suburban areas.

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