When the State Fails: The Rise of Informal Civil Society Organizations in Greece

This thesis by using quantitative and qualitative data investigates the new forms of social and political collective action that rose after the financial crisis of 2009 in Greece. It attempts to study the rise of Informal Civil Society Organizations (ICSO) through the use of the research question, how can we understand the rise of informal civil society organizations in Greece after the onset of the crisis in 2009? With survey data from individuals involved in ICSOs, I analyze the motivations of these individuals, answering the question, what motivates people to voluntarily engage in informal civil society organizations? Through the use of interviews, I investigate the question, why did people establish informal civil society organizations? The quantitative results show that people are motivated to volunteer mostly because of altruistic reasons. The qualitative results show that ICSOs were created to promote social solidarity, as well as to protest against societal change. This thesis concludes that the rise of ICSOs can be interpreted as a new form of social movements