On the Fringe: Greece, Migration, and Populism

Anna Visvizi

doi:10.18290/rns.2018.46.3-5

Anna Visvizi Deree College – The American College of Greece

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rns.2018.46.3-5

Keywords: migration; crisis; populism; Greece; refugees

Abstract

The global financial crisis and the euro area crisis and their implications, triggered populism and demagogy, which have fed on people’s ignorance, confusion and despair. As no common EU-level response to the refugee and migration crises was negotiated promptly, over the period 2015-2016 the EU-level debate on migration created a new opportunity for domestic political actors to employ migration as a resource of political competition at home. Paradoxically, in Greece, i.e. a country so profoundly exposed to the unprecedented influx of migrants, migration has not been used as a resource of political competition. This paper identifies and examines factors that have contributed to that.

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