Movement Structures and Participatory Democracy During the Crisis in Cyprus

In 2014 PCC published a report written by Giorgos Charalambous on political culture and behavior in Cyprus during the crisis. This project will extend insights from that report in order to understand and explain the way non-party structures operate in Cyprus during the crisis. These structures include both interest groups with movement-like characteristics and social networks that promote particular, single issue or multi issue goals (e.g. reconciliation, immigrant rights, anti-austerity). The key question being addressed here is whether there have emerged new forms of participatory democracy in Cyprus during the crisis. The project will explore the universe of movement structures, scrutinize their internal organizational procedures, examine their relations to the political sphere and the state, as well as outline the lines of fragmentation between them. A comparative perspective drawing on the experience of social movements in the rest of southern Europe will be adopted.