Crisis and Democracy - Democracy in Crisis
Social Anthropological Perspectives on the Fragility of the Social Contract
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Speaker
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Dr Elisabeth Kirtsoglou
Lecturer in Anthropology, University of Durham
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Chair
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Dr Spyros Economides
Hellenic Observatory Deputy Director; Associate Professor, International Relations and European Politics; LSEE-Research on South Eastern Europe Co-ordinator
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Date
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Tuesday, 28 October 2014
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Venue
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Cañada Blanch Room, COW 1.11, 1st floor, Cowdray House
European Institute, LSE, Portugal Street, London WC2A 2AE
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Time
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18:00-19:30
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Twitter
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#LSE_HOkirtsoglou
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Seminar Poster
Abstract
The crisis has undoubtedly produced new communities of discontent, and novel spheres of economic, moral and political exclusion but it has not succeeded in changing fundamental patterns of accountability, historical and political causality. Keeping a focus on radicalisation the paper examines particular concerns with sovereignty, democracy and asymmetrical relations of power as these are formulated by the Greek people and sustained by realpolitik, the post second world war climate, populism and institutionalised nationalism. A close consideration of the cultural and structural forces present after 1945 reveals a series of troubling predicaments which led to the uneven development of a closed and ambivalent society in perpetual search for its standing in the international arena. A primarily political crisis that eventually had financial consequences, the Greek case is the aftermath of the very crisis of the Social Contract and it cannot be understood without carefully considering the intricate connections between the local and global. This presentation placed some of the most prominent social responses to the crisis in their historical and political context grounding political analysis firmly in the everyday reality of citizens and publics.
Photos
Dr Elisabeth Kirtsoglou (speaker) and Dr Spyros Economides (chair)
The audience in the Canada Blanch room