This research argues that the recent economic crisis has enabled the facilitation of a boundary enlargement process, which has affected social movement organizations (SMOs) both internally, in terms of their internal operation, but also externally, regarding their relationship with institutional actors. In order to demonstrate this, we base our explanatory framework on the literature of social movements, with particular focus on the Contentious Politics approach.

The study of processes and mechanisms in social movement studies dates back to 2001, when McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly introduced the Dynamics of Contention. Since the 1980s, frame scholars criticized the static model of resource...

Social movement studies lie at the intersection of sociology and political science. This particular field of academic research not only represents and analyzes the formation of informal politics, but it also reflects the societal approach towards collective action. In this respect, we can understand the changes in the Greek society’s views on various social movements, by examining Greek research in this field. Unfortunately, there is a lack of detailed accounts on social movements. The prevalence of political parties as the only means of representation for collective interests resulted in a lack of attention by the national and international academic community...

Compared to the social movement scenes of health and labour, the social movement scene of food presents a greater degree of complexity, since it deals with three different repertoires: the organization of markets without middlemen, the facilitation of collective and social kitchens and the collection and distribution of food parcels. Along with the repertoires, plurality also refers to the organizers. These range from grassroots initiatives and neighbourhood assemblies to traditional social centres. In order to explore the mechanisms that form the boundary enlargement process, we analyse the rise of the markets without middlemen and their transition to consumer cooperatives; we...

The social movement scene of health comprises another example which emerged due to the recent economic crisis and the conditions of austerity. Compared to the plurality of the repertoires analysed in the previous chapter, the health scene focuses on the advent of social clinics and the provision of primary healthcare services and medication free of charge. This chapter aims to investigate the social movement scene in the health sector, in order to unravel the development of the boundary enlargement process. By paying attention to the clinics’ organizational structure and decision-making systems, resources and identity, we explore the basic mechanisms and...

The term “social movement scene of labour” may be perhaps met with skepticism by those familiar with social movement studies. About 50 years ago the labour movement was not a distinct aspect of social movements; instead, it pervaded various forms of collective action. Nevertheless, the end of the 1960s signaled the advent of new social movements, bringing other actors to the forefront and enriching the activities, repertoires, frames and goals of the people taking to the streets. “Working class heroes” started to be replaced by middle-class citizens, while labour issues became marginal in the movements’ agenda, compared to broader post-material...

The advent of the economic crisis transformed the social movement community in Greece, as attention shifted from claim-based protest repertoires towards service-oriented forms of action. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 provide primary empirical insight to the repertoires developed in the food, health, and labour social movement scenes; the contentious politics framework claims that similar sets of mechanisms are identified in different contexts, while different sets of mechanisms lead to similar processes. This inquiry conceives the change in repertoires as a reflection of a boundary enlargement process, where previously defined boundaries of collective action are extended both practically and conceptually. In...

The previous chapters analyse the process of boundary enlargement in crisis-ridden Greece. Without limiting its function to the incorporation of service-oriented repertoires, this section focuses on the provision of unofficial welfare services by social movement actors in other contexts. By paying attention to the Spanish anti-austerity mobilizations in 2011 and the Argentinean movements of the 2001 crisis, we highlight a few instances in which the process of boundary enlargement may contribute to empirical research.

Spain has experienced three protest cycles from the 1960s onwards (Portos, 2019, p. 48), with the last one ending in 2004 after the PSOE, Partido Socialista...