ABSTRACT
Throughout the different chapters of this book we have been able to distinguish two opposed and at the same time complementary tendencies: the first one refers to the importance of what, following Mercier, could be called “national colourings” in the configuration of social movements and the protagonist subjects of these movements. For this reason, in the approach of this book we decided to give space for the diachronic dimension and the historical background of these processes. The second refers to the semi-peripheral position of these Nation-states within the EU, which is reflected in the form – common for all cases and different from the countries in the centre of the EU – in which the debt crisis affected them. In this sense, although the actors mobilized in order to give an alternative response from the Left to this situation of crisis are different, they have in common their ability to translate the discomfort of the population generating challenging discourses that, although do not have the quality of formulating alternative responses to austerity policies, provide delegitimizing and contesting elements before these policies and the powers that implement them. And here lies precisely their strength: on its ability to elaborate narratives that contest hegemony, assuming their subaltern position.
