ABSTRACT
The onset of austerity politics in 2010 in most high-income democracies represented a fundamental challenge to established welfare compromises. Whilst welfare provision had already been in decline throughout the neoliberal period, the post-2010 experience represented a more thoroughgoing assault on the living standards of Europe’s working population. In addition, the austerity agenda came at a time when institutions typically associated with the advance of working-class interests – especially trade unions and social democratic parties – were at a low ebb. In many contexts, however, the absence of a formal left response, alongside the existence of a nascent horizontalist protest movement, facilitated a wave of grassroots organisation that opposed austerity and sought to generate an alternative that was built around the principle of prefiguration. Subsequent developments have witnessed a flourishing of populist responses – both of left- and right-wing varieties. Yet, as the chapter highlights, these responses can only be understood with an acknowledgement of the ongoing potential for Europe’s (changing) working class to act disruptively in contemporary capitalism. These trends will be illustrated empirically, mapping some of the key ways in which resistance has been enacted in austerity Europe.
