ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the public appearances that were enacted to emotionalize the crisis, and to profit from the state of emergency and the social or 'moral disintegration' that several actors of the group presented as the legitimate causes of their mobilization. It draws on some specific events that encapsulate the active performative potential of the party in the social life of Athens to normalize their presence in the Greek 'state of emergency'. The chapter argues that the far-right political party Golden Dawn has been developing a political style that is based on demonstrations and the public appearances of its members in various areas of Athens. It discusses the 'cultural' circumstances that enable and legitimize far-right extremism in Greece and the 'performative' competence of the party in a number of events. Many of the public performances stress purity and danger, loss and violence, class and hierarchy in an attempt to reproduce populist perceptions and enact an imagined social/political critique.
