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Civil society has long been associated with the consolidation and maintenance of young democracies (Diamond 1994) as well as with the higher or lower performance of institutions in advanced democracies (Putnam 1993). Civil society is understood here as a pluralist socio-political arena, which includes Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), professional associations, charities, labour unions, grass-roots movements, and informal, local and national networks of citizens, expressing their concerns and delivering services to people in need, all of which play a fundamental role in legitimizing democratic governance. Civil society plays such a role by continuously trying to approximate representative, participatory and deliberative norms (Liebert/Trenz 2011: 27). This function is put at risk in the context of an economic crisis.

After the onset of an economic crisis, civil society associations, in addition to contributing to representativeness, responsiveness and accountability of democratic institutions, may become vehicles of social protest. Social solidarity networks may step in, to help people who have fallen in poverty or social exclusion and have limited or no access to welfare institutions. In such instances, civil society becomes a protagonist of political developments and social innovation. It is in such moments that civil society can best develop its potential to overcome the regulatory deficits and the democratic shortfalls of modern democracies (Liebert/Trenz 2011: 7). These twin deficits are created by the increasing complexity of the problems which national governments and supra-national entities, such as the European Union (EU), are called upon to solve in a rapidly changing international environment.

The type of impact of a strong civil society depends on its organisation and values. Associational life may be vibrant not only because citizens pursue political liberties, but also because of the mobilisation of organisations and groups pursuing illiberal causes or motivated by exclusionist (e.g. racist) values. Groups which constitute an “uncivil society” (Kopecky/Mudde 2003) may [66] even violate human rights in order to implement what they believe is a higher-order cause (e.g. an ethnically homogeneous society, a stateless egalitarian society, etc.). In such cases, the strengthening of civil society may lead to the undermining of democracy (Berman 1997). The examples of extremely radical, anti-parliamentary leftist groups or of neo-Nazi, racist, anti-migrant groups which have resorted to political violence in Greece after the economic crisis had erupted, illustrate this point.

In what follows, I will first present some basic information on the social effects of the economic crisis in Greece, discuss civil society before the economic crisis and then analyse how civil society has evolved in the wake of the crisis. I focus on social protest and social solidarity activities and also instances of uncivil society. I will conclude arguing that civil society has been empowered since the onset of the economic crisis, but it has followed varying trajectories, some of which do not necessarily lead to positive political developments and social innovation.