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Abstract: The Greek economic crisis resonates across Europe as synonymous with corruption, poor government, austerity, financial bailouts, civil unrest, and social turmoil. The search for accountability on the local level is entangled with competing rhetorics of persuasion, fear, and complex historical consciousness. Internationally, the Greek crisis is employed as a trope to call for collective mobilization and political change. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Trikala, central Greece, this article outlines how accountability for the Greek economic crisis is understood in local and international arenas. Trikala can be considered a microcosm for the study of the pan-European economic turmoil as the "Greek crisis" is heralded as a warning on national stages throughout the continent.
Keywords: accountability, economic crisis, Greece, neoliberalism, political mobilization
The Greek economic crisis as trope
As the ramifications of a second multibillion- euro bailout are deliberated by the Greek gov- ernment and new waves of austerity enswathe the nation, people are left to ponder where it all went wrong. Blame is directed at the external Other-America, Germany, and the infamous Troika-and the "Other within"-corrupt poli- ticians, businessmen, and broken neoliberal promises (Kirtsoglou and Theodossopoulos 2010; Herzfeld 2011). Financial mismanage- ment and "corruption" at the governmental level are rife, but a pyramid effect of dangerous economic activity is now widely acknowledged, as neoliberal rationale entwines with "tradi- tional" economic relations from the heights of government to the grassroots level (Narotzky 1997; Knight 2012b). However, the Greek eco- nomic crisis transcends local and national bor- ders. With escalating global social unrest and the circulation of blame spawning niche politi- cal parties pandering to xenophobia, the "Greek crisis" highlights the complex relationship be- tween global systems and local experience. Across Europe the adoption of the Greek crisis as a trope to provoke fear and stimulate shifts in the realms of governmental power further em- phasizes the uneven nature of the international political theater.
Narratives of blame have been formulated by the European right and directed at specific na- tion-states based on essentialist ideas of culture and economy. This methodological nationalism seeks to clarify abstract global flows of finance and accountability by making examples of pe- ripheral states, thus distracting from substantial economic troubles at home. The focus on Greece as the par excellence example...