This article seeks to explore the discursive rediscovery of the left menace and the ideological relevance between the far right and the right wing in Greece in times of political turmoil. Drawing on some historical aspects of modern Greece, first, I intend to explain the resurgence of Greece’s divided past. By emphasising references to Gramsci and the ‘hegemony of the left’, the article investigates the discursive construction of ingroups and outgroups on the basis of haunted memories of modern Greek history. By synthesising the Discourse Historical Approach and the concept of Aristotelian topos, I explicate how Gramsci has been re-utilised in an extreme right context by Greek far-right figures in order to stigmatise their ideological opponents. In a second step, my aim is to study the normalisation of political enmity by highlighting far-right discourses’ resemblance to New Democracy’s members’ rhetoric through references to Greek culture and economic imaginaries.
Bar On, Tamir. 2011. “Transnationalism and the French Nouvelle Droite”. Patterns of Prejudice 45(3): 199–223.
Bistis, George. 2013. “Golden Dawn or Democratic Sunset: The Rise of the Far Right in Greece”. Mediterranean Quarterly 24(3): 35–55.
Boukala, Salomi. 2016. “Rethinking topos in the discourse historical approach: Endoxon seeking and argumentation in Greek media discourses on ‘Islamist terrorism”. Discourse Studies 18(3): 249–268.
Boukala, Salomi. 2019. European Identity and the Representation of Islam in the Mainstream Press: Argumentation and Media Discourse. London: Palgrave.
Boukala, Salomi, and Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou. 2017. “The Politics of Fear vs The Politics of Hope: Analysing the 2015 Greek election and referendum campaigns”. Critical Discourse Studies 14(1): 39–55.
Christopoulos, Dimitris. 2014. “The political venture of the far right extremism mapping in the Greek state”, in The deep state in Greece and the far right, ed. by Dimitris Christopoulos, 17–32. Athens, Nisos. [in Greek]
Ellinas, Antonis. 2013. “The Rise of Golden Dawn: The New Face of the Far Right in Greece”. South European Society and Politics 18(4): 543–565.
Fragkoudaki, Anna. 2013. Nationalism and the rise of far right. Athens, Alexandria. [in Greek]
Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Griffin, Roger. 2000. ‘Plus ça change! The fascist pedigree of the nouvelle droite”. In The Developments of the Radical Right in France, ed. by Edward J. Arnold, 217–252. London, Macmillan.
Jessop, Bob. 2010. “Cultural Political Economy and Critical Policy Studies”. Critical Policy Studies 3(3):336–56.
Kallis, Aristotle. 2010. “Neither Fascist nor Authoritarian: The Fourth of August Regime in Greece (1936–1941) and the Dynamics of Fascistisation in 1930s Europe”. East Central Europe 371: 303–330.
Kallis, Aristotle. 2007. “Fascism and Religion: The Metaxas Regime in Greece and the ‘Third Hellenic Civilisation’. Some Theoretical Observations on ‘Fascism’, ‘Political Religion’ and ‘Clerical Fascism”. Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 8(2): 229–246.
Kousouris, Dimitris. 2014. “Fascism in Greece”. In The deep state in Greece and the far right, ed. by Dimitris Christopoulos, 33–82. Athens, Nisos. [in Greek]
Krzyżanowski, Michał. 2020a. “Normalisation and the discursive construction of “new” norms and “new” normality: discourse in the paradoxes of populism and neoliberalism”. Social Semiotics. 30:4, 431–448.
Krzyżanowski, Michał. 2020b. “Discursive shifts and the normalisation of racism: imaginaries of immigration, moral panics and the discourse of contemporary right-wing populism”. Social Semiotics. 30:4, 503–527.
Krzyżanowski, Michał. 2010. The Discursive Construction of European Identities: A Multi-Level Approach to Discourse and Identity in the Transforming European Union. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Linardatos, Spiros. 1977. From the Civil War to Junta. Vol. I, V. Athens, Papazisis. [in Greek]
National Society [Ethniki Hetaireia]. 1937. Communism in Greece. Athens: National Society. [in Greek]
Nikolakopoulos, Elias. 2005. “Elections and Voters, 1974–2004: Old Cleavages and New Issues”, West European Politics, 28:2, 260–278.
Panourgia, Neni. 2009. Dangerous Citizens. The Greek Left and the Terror of the State. New York: Fordham University Press.
Plevris, Konstantinos. 1987. The Anti-democrat. Athens, Nea Thesis. [in Greek]
Psarras, Dimitris. 2014. “Konstantinos Plevris and the 4th of August party”, In ASKI (eds.) Far right in the light of history, 47–68. Athens, Themelio. [in Greek]
Psarras, Dimitris. 2012. The Black Bible of Golden Dawn. Athens, Polis. [in Greek]
Reisigl, Martin, and Ruth Wodak. 2016. “The Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA)”. In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, 3rd edition, ed. by Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, 23–61. London: Sage.
Reisigl, Martin, and Ruth Wodak. 2001. Discourse and Discrimination. London: Routledge.
Sotiris, Panagiotis. 2017. “From the Nation to the People of a Potential New Historical Bloc: Rethinking Popular Sovereignty through Gramsci”. International Gramsci Journal 2(3): 52–88.
Vernardakis, Christos. 2011. “The Rise and Fall of the Greek Conservative Party: Ideological Realignments and Egocentric Economic Voting at the Dawn of the Financial Crisis”. Paper prepared for presentation at the 61st Political Studies Association Annual Conference, London, UK 19–21 April 2011.
Vernardakis, Christos. 2005. “Political Parties and the “Middle Space”. The Ideological, Political and Cultural Orientations of the Current Political Forces”. In Public Opinion in Greece 2004, ed. by Christos Vernardakis. Athens: Savvalas, pp. 57–85 [In Greek].
Verney, Susannah. 2014. “Broken and can’t be fixed’: The impact of the economic crisis on the Greek party system. The International Spectator”. Italian Journal of International Affairs 49(1): 18–35.
Wodak, Ruth. 2015. The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. London: Sage.
Xenakis, Sappho. 2012. “A New Dawn? Change and Continuity in Political Violence in Greece”. Terrorism and Political Violence 24(3): 437–464.
Cited by (7)
Cited by seven other publications
Boukala, Salomi
2024. The Greek left-wing and the ‘Jewish problem’: analysing antizionism and antisemitism as forms of soft hate speech. Critical Discourse Studies► pp. 1 ff.
Savvides, Leandros & Ioanna Ferra
2024. Digitally Mediated Collective Memory of the Greek Civil War: A Post-Memory Analysis of YouTube Comments. In Class, Culture, and the Media in Greece, Volume 1, ► pp. 223 ff.
2024. Endoxa, Regimes of Truth, and Hatred Rhetoric: Examining Golden Dawn’s Online Media Discourses. In Class, Culture, and the Media in Greece, Volume 1, ► pp. 127 ff.
Georgalidou, Marianthi
2023. Greek Political Discourse, 2019–2022: Instrumentalizing Impoliteness and Aggression. In Political Debasement, ► pp. 173 ff.
Way, Lyndon C. S. & Dimitris Serafis
2023. Scroll culture and authoritarian populism: how Turkish and Greek online news aggravate ‘refugee crisis’ tensions. Critical Discourse Studies 20:6 ► pp. 643 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 january 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.