Vol. 15 No. 29 (2024): Continuities and Transformations in Forms of Collective Action
Articles

From Tactical Differentiation to Tactical Convergence. Trajectories of Healthcare Direct Social Actions and Their Impact in the Greek Healthcare Arena: 1983-2015

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  • Stella Christou
Stella Christou
Scuola Normale Superiore
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/smp-15500

Published 2024-07-23

Keywords

  • politicisation,
  • healthcare,
  • actors,
  • tactics

How to Cite

Christou, S. (2024). From Tactical Differentiation to Tactical Convergence. Trajectories of Healthcare Direct Social Actions and Their Impact in the Greek Healthcare Arena: 1983-2015. SocietàMutamentoPolitica, 15(29), 91–106. https://doi.org/10.36253/smp-15500

Copyright (c) 2024 Stella Christou

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This paper traces the emergence, politicisation and spread of healthcare provision tactics by (contentious) collective actors in Greece between 1990 and 2015. Drawing on participant observation, in-depth interviews with relevant field actors (N=40), and documentary analysis, the paper develops a diachronic typology that analyses and compares; (1) the appearance of those tactics in the Greek context in the 1990s, (2) their appropriation by contentious actors after the December 2008 riots, and (3) their diffusion, and eventual modularisation over the course of the 2010 crisis and the cycle of anti-austerity contention. In so doing, the paper helps disentangle the dynamics of repertoire innovation through an understudied set of tactics. This is achieved through the reconstruction of the genealogy of healthcare Direct Social Actions (DSAs) – pace Bosi and Zamponi (2015) – in Greece, their transmutation from “consenting” to contentious tactics after 2008, and their wide diffusion among contentious milieus after 2010. In addition, the paper discusses the interplay between the contextual and strategic dimensions of those tactical preferences across actors and across time. To be sure, early utilisation of those tactics on the side of marginal players can be understood as attempts to tactically differentiate themselves vis-à-vis those traditional and hegemonic players in the arena who relied on indirect, protest tactics. The crisis, however, disturbed the seeming equilibrium of the healthcare arena thus prompting tactical convergence around healthcare DSAs among contentious actors, on the one hand, while reinforcing strategic convergence among some actors and strategic divergence among others.

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