ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the impact of political differences on networks at a national level in the case of Greece, mobilization on global social movements and global issues. Mario Diani (1992, 2003) has clearly and extensively argued on the value of treating social movements as networks if the aim is to identify the distinctive characteristics of such contentious forms of collective action which differentiate them from other social processes and social actors (like nonconflictual movements, political organizations and coalitions). For Diani, social movements are defined as networks ‘of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups or associations, engaged in a political or cultural conflict, on the basis of a shared collective identity’ (Diani 1992, p. 13). In fact, this is the starting point of what we intend to discuss here concerning contentious protest in Greece centered on global issues during the two years, 2002–2003. Actually, that contemporary social movements around global issues constitute and represent a paradigm ‘par excellence’ of a networked form of mobilization is an idea to which many would have no difficulty in subscribing. For instance, Arturo Escobar claims that the most apt metaphor to describe the anti-globalization movement is that of networks. Furthermore, drawing upon the collateral concept of a ‘meshwork’ advanced by Manuel de Landa (1997), Escobar suggests that ‘anti-globalization struggles are best seen as horizontal, self-organizing meshworks of heterogeneous sites/struggles brought together by diverse interfaces and catalysts, particularly NGOs and pioneering social movements’ (Escobar 2000, p. 12).
