Posing for legitimacy? Identity and praxis of far-right populism in Greece

Abstract

Bearing in mind that the focus of all political parties remains the access to political power, they all not only attempt to acquire political power within government, but more importantly work towards its acquisition and maintenance. The paper examines the case of far right populism in three political parties in Greece, the Golden Dawn, LAOS and ANEL. Since 2007 different forms of far right populist parties have managed not only a successful parliamentary representation but also participation in coalition governments. With a realignment of the electorate away from the established political parties, far right populism, with rhetoric on nationalism, extremism, xenophobia and racism has achieved a strong impact. The analysis focuses on monitoring the thread that led to the support of such parties with a challenging level of legitimacy, and aims to propose a sense of a collective identity and a wider understanding of the popularised version of hate crimes in a profoundly entrapped country struggling to overcome a period of economic and socio-political crisis.