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The current economic crisis was a turning point, for the worse, in the everyday reality for a huge sector of the Greek population. Austerity-stricken Greece is characterised by the collapse of the wel-fare state and by increasingly uncovered basic needs. The answer to this humanitarian problem has been given by thousands of formal and informal initiatives and organisations and their solidarity actions, such as barter networks, food banks, consumers-producers networks, soup kitchens, new cooperatives, social economy enterprises and free legal advice. Despite the role of these initiatives and organisations in cover-ing needs, there are also signs that some of them make claims for social and/or political change. Conse-quently, some of these groups and organisations function in the political arena. This paper aims to map and analyse Alternative Action Organisations (AAOs), which are engaged with solidarity and political ac-tions, as well. It compares 'political AAOs' (engaged in protest, awareness raising and lobbying activities) and 'non-political AAOs' (engaged exclusively in solidarity actions) with respect to some of their main fea-tures. Moreover, the paper aims, through explanatory analysis, to uncover the predictors associated with AAOs' engagement in political activities.

In recent years, the global financial crisis and the ensuing austerity measures in European countries have resulted in dire cuts to public services, massive job losses, and diminished incomes. At the same time, and parallel to the economic crisis, a refugee crisis has arisen. In this context, ordinary citizens and new or re-energised networks of cooperation among civil society actors (e.g. non-governmental organisations (NGOs), churches, trade unions, cooperatives, grassroots initiatives) foster (transnational) solidarity practices. These practices grow in importance as they try to address people's needs, often unmet by national governments given their lack of financial resources. This article investigates whether and to what extent civic initiatives and organisations are involved in transnational solidarity activities. Moreover, it seeks to identify those factors that seem to promote or inhibit the scope of transnational activities. The article critically analyses the initiatives and practices of Transnational Solidarity Organisations (TSOs) in eight European countries on the basis of data on transnationally oriented civic groups and organisations committed to organising solidarity activities in three fields of work (disabilities, unemployment, and assistance to refugees). The analysis aims to contribute, through fresh empirical data, to the scholarly discussion in the field of transnational solidarity mobilisation and organisations by pointing out that most solidarity organisations remain active primarily at the local and/or national level(s) and that only a minority of solidarity organisations are engaged in cross-national activities. Transnational activities are associated with formalisation and professionalisation. Moreover, maintaining a web of transnational partners, being able to communicate with such partners, and conventional action repertoires seem to be conducive to transnational activism. Organisational values linked to cosmopolitanism are also important, but their impact on transnational solidarity actions is mediated and conditioned by the TSOs' level of formalisation.

First Published Online: 15 September 2020 ; In recent years, the global financial crisis and the ensuing austerity measures in European countries have resulted in dire cuts to public services, massive job losses, and diminished incomes. At the same time, and parallel to the economic crisis, a refugee crisis has arisen. In this context, ordinary citizens and new or re-energised networks of cooperation among civil society actors (e.g. non-governmental organisations (NGOs), churches, trade unions, cooperatives, grassroots initiatives) foster (transnational) solidarity practices. These practices grow in importance as they try to address people's needs, often unmet by national governments given their lack of financial resources. This article investigates whether and to what extent civic initiatives and organisations are involved in transnational solidarity activities. Moreover, it seeks to identify those factors that seem to promote or inhibit the scope of transnational activities. The article critically analyses the initiatives and practices of Transnational Solidarity Organisations (TSOs) in eight European countries on the basis of data on transnationally oriented civic groups and organisations committed to organising solidarity activities in three fields of work (disabilities, unemployment, and assistance to refugees). The analysis aims to contribute, through fresh empirical data, to the scholarly discussion in the field of transnational solidarity mobilisation and organisations by pointing out that most solidarity organisations remain active primarily at the local and/or national level(s) and that only a minority of solidarity organisations are engaged in cross-national activities. Transnational activities are associated with formalisation and professionalisation. Moreover, maintaining a web of transnational partners, being able to communicate with such partners, and conventional action repertoires seem to be conducive to transnational activism. Organisational values linked to cosmopolitanism are also important, but their impact on transnational solidarity actions is mediated and conditioned by the TSOs' level of formalisation. ; Results presented in this article have been obtained through the project 'European paths to transnational solidarity at times of crisis: Conditions, forms, role-models and policy responses' (TransSOL). Tis project was funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 649435).

The implementation of austerity and neoliberal policies has disrupted everyday life for a significant number of Europeans, especially among young people. Rising tuition fees, labor market reforms, levels of unemployment, precarious working conditions, and discontent toward the political status quo have contributed to increase moral panics and outrage, which have often triggered mass protests. This article analyses whether and to what extent young Europeans express their demands via protest claims across nine European countries ( N = 4,525). We argue that examining political (institutional and discursive) opportunities and claims' attributes (such as actors, issues, targets) is important to understand whether a youth-related claim takes a protest form or not.

Solidarity alternatives have emerged as the response of organized social activists to periods of economic hardship all over the world, in different times. This article explores to what extent such activities have emerged across European regions following the financial crisis of 2008. Research has addressed the relationship between the economic context and the emergence of alternative action groups, tracing their spatial variation, but few works offer systematic comparative data at the regional level. This article offers a spatial overview of temporal changes among 2,600 Alternative Action Organizations (AAOs) at the regional level in nine European countries, before and after 2008. It also provides evidence of how the number of AAOs and their focus on the most needy change as a function of the intensity of the crisis and its effect on the poor and unemployed. We find no differences between countries either in terms of the number of emerging AAOs nor in their capacity to refocus their attention on the most needy, due to the intensity or type of crisis. We thus confirm existing research that explains alternative action as a response to crisis within the context of resourced and experienced social action organizations rather than as a direct reaction to economic hardship. Our results provide comprehensive evidence across multiple contexts showing that social resilience through alternative action is not produced directly by contextual distress but seems to be mediated by existing resources. This is relevant to understanding the mechanisms behind the widely acknowledged claim that alternative economies arise in contexts of economic crisis.

The implementation of austerity and neoliberal policies has disrupted everyday life for a significant number of Europeans, especially among young people. Rising tuition fees, labor market reforms, levels of unemployment, precarious working conditions, and discontent toward the political status quo have contributed to increase moral panics and outrage, which have often triggered mass protests. This article analyses whether and to what extent young Europeans express their demands via protest claims across nine European countries (N = 4,525). We argue that examining political (institutional and discursive) opportunities and claims' attributes (such as actors, issues, targets) is important to understand whether a youth-related claim takes a protest form or not. ; The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors received financial support from the EURYKA ('Reinventing Democracy in Europe: Youth Doing Politics in Times of Increasing Inequalities') research project. This project has received funding from the EU's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 727025.

This article highlights the importance of crisis-related transformations experienced during the 2008–2016 period by transnationally oriented, citizen-led solidarity organisations, a topic that has received scant scholarly attention. It offers an exploratory, comparative analysis of the main features of these Transnational Solidarity Organisations (TSOs) which rests on a comprehensive conceptual framework of 'alternative forms of resilience', referring to the ability to bounce back from hardship and meet human needs in challenging times. We apply a new methodology, Action Organisation Analysis, which is based on information coded from organisational websites of solidarity organisations retrieved from online directories. Using a sample of 1753 TSOs, we examine two types of approaches: adaptive (philanthropic, formal, or reformist) and autonomous (mutual-help, informal, or contentious) ones. We document differential transformations for adaptive and autonomous TSOs, as reflected in their major characteristics, that is, their value frames, partners, and routes to achieve their goals and supplementary actions, across time and in three different issue fields: migration, disabilities, and unemployment. Notable are the increasing shifts towards social change and protests, especially for unemployment TSOs, and less so for migration ones. The findings contribute to debates on the impact of crises on activist solidarity organisations by documenting the dialectics of autonomy and adaptation across contemporary social issues, as well as by highlighting the importance of TSOs' hybrid features. This analysis will also be useful for future work on transnational solidarity organisations and their transitions in a rapidly evolving global society.

Alternative collective initiatives often emerge during hard times, supporting citizens and helping them meet their increasing needs through nonmainstream economic activities. To this end, citizens organize formal and informal alternative action organizations (AAOs). Recent studies have shown that the economic crisis was a trigger for the founding of a wide variety of new AAOs, especially in the countries most affected, such as Greece and Spain. One aspect of AAOs untouched so far, however, is their life span. This article investigates factors that impact on AAOs' ability to stay active online, using fresh data on their organizational profiles from their organizational websites. It offers a comparative, systematic analysis of the age structure and the activity rate of AAOs in nine European countries (Greece, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Poland, Switzerland, and Sweden), for the 2007-2016 period. Following the classic resource mobilization theory, we conclude that the lifeline of these organizations, as that of social movement organizations, even when their forms are innovative and alternative, depends on adequate resources.

Over the last decade, the unprecedented influx of refugees and migrants into the European Union has posed a significant challenge to Europe, with solidarity being contested at two fronts: first, the question of solidarity with refugees in terms of meeting adequate measures of protection and satisfying their elementary needs; and second, the question of solidarity within the European Union in terms of sharing the costs and burden of hosting these refugees among the member states. One driving factor of these contestations is that the solidarity challenge in facing the 'refugee crisis' is taken up differently in transit countries in the South of Europe and destination countries in the North. Wishing to shed light on how national contexts impact transnational solidarity organising, we draw on a fresh set of cross-national evidence from a random sample of 277 transnational solidarity organisations (TSOs) in Greece, Germany, and Denmark. The aim is to illustrate the effects of political opportunities and threats during the 2007–2016 crises period on migration-related solidarity activities organised by TSOs. We will do so through tri-national comparisons tracing migration-related TSO patterns across time. The data used is produced in the context of the TRANSSOL project by a new methodological approach (action organisation analysis) based on hubs-retrieved organisational websites and their subsequent content analysis.