ABSTRACT
This chapter makes a contribution toward the analytical appraisal and theorization by considering the Greek events as an instance of contentious politics par excellence. It claims that the Greek events were something profoundly more intense and politically consequential: a special, hitherto theoretically under specified form the author dubs Insurrectionary Collective Action (ICA). The chapter suggests that ICA is characterized by broad socio-geographic diffusion processes, whereby riots originally breaking out in one locale amongst populations that are usually segregated snowball to engulf entire regions and diverse social strata. It focuses on three neglected dimensions of contentious politics: the spatial, the emotional and the temporal. The chapter stresses the emergence of a new contentious lan on a variety of occasions, such as the occupation of the headquarters of the underground train after a mafia-style attack against the secretary of the cleaners' union Konstantina Kouneva and the emergence of a new militant unionism.
