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"The economic crisis has brought about a watershed in institutional, political and social relations, reshaping the labour market and the class structure in southern Europe. This book provides a critical comparative assessment of the dynamics of change in the employment field, focusing on Spain, Greece and Cyprus. The book assesses how the liberalization and deregulation processes and the promotion of market-enhancing reforms progressed in three different national settings, identifying the forces, agents, contexts, and mechanisms shaping the employment and industrial relations systems. The comparative perspective used deciphers the interplay of external and internal dynamics in the restructuring of the labour field in Southern Europe examining austerity and its contestation in connection with prevailing societal ideologies and class shifts. The first part of the book sets the theoretical and historical context, the second is comprised of three empirical national case studies and the third discusses comparatively the handling of the crisis, its impact, and its legacy from the standpoint of a decade later. The book presents differences in industrial relations systems, trade union forms and class composition dynamics, accounting for the development of the crisis and the reshaping of the employment field after one decade of crisis. It will be of value to researchers, academics, professionals, and students working on issues of employment and industrial relations, labour market and labour law, political economy and class structure as well as those interested in the contemporary society and economy of southern Europe in general, and Spain, Greece and Cyprus in particular"--

1. Introduction: History, Need and Choices -- 2. From Nationalism to Partition 1950-1975 -- 3. Separation as a Lived Reality, as a Promise and as a Taboo 1975-2003 -- 4. The Opening of the Checkpoints and the Unfulfilled Potential -- 5. Referendum 2004: The End of Innocence -- 6. The Ten-Year Battle Between Federation and Antifederation 2007-2017 -- 7. The Schools and the Universities, the Mass Media and the Deep State of the Republic of Cyprus of Emergent Necessity -- 8. The Shifts in the Greek Cypriot Bourgeoisie and the Equilibria in the Greek Cypriot Community -- 9. Conclusion: History, Responsibility and the Future.

This article explores the ideological orientations of 'younger workers' in relation to their experience of precarious employment in Scotland and Greece. Based on 60 semi-structured interviews with workers in hospitality-related occupations in two national settings, it counterposes their actual material conditions to their ideational conceptions, values and worldviews. By interrogating stances on issues such as flexibility, future plans, collectivism and trade unionism, on the ideals of freedom and fairness and on their thoughts about what is possible in their field of work, it enquires about the impact of prevailing market-centred values and neoliberal axioms on younger workers. It identifies tensions, unease and contradictions in workers' 'subjective' articulations and explains how these are not a product of ideology per se but have their causes in the 'objective' realm, the socio-economic conditions prevailing since the financial crisis.

This article argues that more emphasis should be paid to the communicative power of trade unionism because it may constitute a starting point or a privileged standpoint which a trade union may use to counter its weakness regarding its other sources of power. Reviewing the trade union revitalisation literature, it is argued that social movement theory in general and especially 'political opportunity structure', can complement and enrich the power resources approach which is a useful tool in the analysis of trade union action. The case study of a weak trade union winning a strike largely as a result of its successful utilisation of its communicative power is presented where the public communication of the two sides to the conflict is subjected to content and discourse analysis. The article argues that trade unions can enhance their position through the adaptation of social movement strategy and campaign tactics into trade union activity because social movements are more accustomed to orienting their action in the public sphere. In this effort trade unions may draw upon the more explicitly normative and substantive dimension of labour law as a resource to legitimise and garner support for the unions' objectives framing in a more expansive manner the issues at stake so that a significant section of society can identify with the trade union struggle at hand.

The concept of segmentation is mainly used to describe division in the labor market and the formation of primary and secondary markets, or division within the firm into a core and a peripheral labor force. This theoretical formulation that focuses on employment terms and conditions, although valid at a general level, becomes inadequate once the researcher observes closely actual workplace conditions. I argue that there is a multiplicity of segmentation factors and levels, social as well as work‐related, which produce identifications and differentiations and social cleavages, which reflect and sustain differentials of power resulting in labor force fragmentation. Gender, ethnicity, and age may combine with skills and occupational positions leading into the construction of formal and informal hierarchies. Drawing on data from Cyprus, this article illustrates the basic institutional, economic, cultural, and social factors producing labor force fragmentation contributing to the relevant literature with new empirical findings.

Southern European countries are currently experiencing a dramatic economic slump and fully fledged austerity measures. Accordingly, the standard of living of the majority of southern European populaces has fallen significantly. Nevertheless, the dynamics of social contention in the form of strikes and demonstrations that accompany these experiences remain understudied. Why, in certain southern European countries, has collective upset arising from economic deprivation translated into frequent and large-scale contentious acts, while in others it has not? Drawing on the case of Cyprus from a comparative, southern European perspective, we seek to explain how relations within the party system, as well as between parties and civil society, can create the conditions that obstruct open social conflict. The intensity and nature of party-society linkages with causal roots in a country's history can be a sufficient condition for the relative absence of protest.

In 2008, leftists across Europe hailed the election of communist leader Dimitris Christofias to executive office in the Republic of Cyprus as a breakthrough, with grand prospects for progressive, leftward change. The Cypriot left in the form of AKEL seemed to be the exception in the neoliberal European political universe, offering a new hope and the potential for an alternative political course. AKEL's rise to executive power was seen as evidence that the left could head the government in a European state, and as an example for other left parties. Five years on, during a period in which Cyprus has signed a bailout agreement with the Troika comparable to those of Greece, the right has triumphantly returned to office, some of the harshest austerity measures have been imposed by EU elites and passed by parliament, and with public opinion on the left government's record unprecedentedly negative, the issue of communist participation in the executive is once again, rightfully back on the agenda.

Introducing the topic and the concepts / Giorgos Charalambous and Gregoris Ioannou -- The Russian Narodniks and their relationship to Russian Marxism / Richard Mullin -- Social democracy and the temptation of populism between the world wars : France in a comparative perspective / Fabien Escalona -- Historicizing the populist temptation : the case of Eurocommunism / Ioannis Balampanidis -- Corbyn, Sanders and the contestation of neoliberal hegemony / Owen Worth -- 'Make way for the people!' : left-wing populism in the rhetoric of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's 2012 and 2017 presidential campaigns / Paolo Chiocchetti -- New left populism contesting and taking power : the cases of Syriza and Podemos / Alexandros Kioupkiolis and Giorgos Katsambekis -- Hijacking the left? : the populist and radical right in two post-Communist polities / Vassilis Petsinis -- Mapping anti-austerity discourse : populism, sloganeering, and/or realism? / David J. Bailey -- West European trade unions, labour and 'the people' : from the golden era to the times of austerity / Gregoris Ioannou and Giorgos Charalambous -- Populism as deceptive invocations of the popular : a political approach / Seraphim Seferiades -- Conclusions : populism and left radicalism in Europe across time and space / Giorgos Charalambous and Gregoris Ioannou.