The Left and the crisis in Cyprus

invited book chapter in March L. and Keith L. (eds), The radical Left and the crisis

Abstract:

The Left and the crisis in Cyprus is a particularly interesting topic to investigate because the Left happened to head the government at the time when the crisis unfolded and because the crisis in Cyprus developed with intense rapidity and severity. This chapter discusses the relationship of the Cypriot Left and the economic crisis in three inter-linked dimensions: a) the response of the AKEL to the crisis in terms of discourse and action while holding state executive power, b) the stance of the AKEL while being in opposition and c) the impact of the crisis on the Left's support base, including AKELian intellectual production. Whereas the first two dimensions correspond to two temporally different modalities and are externally oriented in the sense of examining policies and rhetoric, the third one assumes a unified moment and an inward perspective attempting to tap on the actual impact of the crisis in socio-economic, organisational and ideological terms on the Left's rank and file members and voters alike.  

Gregoris Ioannou and Giorgos Charalambous

Party-society linkages and contentious acts: Cyprus in a comparative, South European perspective

Social contention in the form of strikes, protests, riots and violent acts tends to be an important characteristic of countries in crisis. Southern European countries – Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain – 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 while large social groups find themselves in desperate conditions and this has led to social unrest and changing political alignments. Nevertheless, the proliferating dynamics of social contention that accompany these experiences remain understudied. An important question is why in certain southern European countries social contention has increased to unprecedented heights while in others social upset has not translated into contentious acts? Indeed, how the economic crisis relates to contentious acts at the level of society remains a debatable area of scholarly research. Drawing on the case of Cyprus from a comparative, Southern European perspective, we seek to explain how the relations between parties and social groups, as well as within each of these two groups of collective agents can create the conditions that obstruct open social conflict. Our analysis has implications for contentious politics. The intensity and nature of party-society linkages which have their causal roots in a country's historical trajectory have implications for the prevailing political culture and can be a sufficient condition for the absence of strikes and protests, riots and violent acts.

Giorgos Charalambous and Gregoris Ioannou

paper to be presented at 

European Consortium for Political Research 8th General Conference, 

University of Glasgow, September 2014

No bridge over troubled waters: The Cypriot Left heading the government 2008-2013

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 neo-liberal European political universe, offering a new hope and a 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 after, when Cyprus has signed a bail-out agreement with the Troika, comparable to the ones in Greece, the right has triumphantly returned back to office, some of the harshest austerity measures have been imposed by EU elites and passed by parliament, and public opinion on the left government’s record is unprecedentedly negative, the issue of communist participation in the executive is once again, rightfully back on the agenda.

http://cnc.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/05/21/0309816815587078.abstract

Employment in crisis: Cyprus 2010-2013

This article discusses the conditions that prevail in the Cyprus labour market after the onset of the economic crisis. The analysis takes the form of a chronological narrative on the development of the crisis, its impact on employment relations and the attempts of the political elite to manage it through austerity measures. The article argues that the recession and the rising unemployment accelerated and exacerbated already existing tendencies of labour market deregulation and trade union marginalisation while in the context of the Memorandum of Understanding with the Troika and its aftermath, historical work rights and benefits as well as living standards were eroded, extending the condition of “precarity” to broader sections of the Cyprus labour force. It is primarily a descriptive account which reports the recent developments in an attempt to map out the changes in the field of employment, situate them in their historical context and preliminarily assess their significance.

The connection between trade unions and political parties

abstract for a chapter in the forthcoming book

"Party-society relations in the Republic of Cyprus"

This chapter outlines the connection between the trade unions in Cyprus with the main political parties, tracing it from its beginnings in the 1940s, through its historical development during the era of independence, until today, the era of the Memorandum. The broader context of the formation of this historical connection is initially discussed in order to then build upon it an analysis of its content and implications for our contemporary times. The relationship is examined from its both sides – union and party and across the political cleavage of Left and Right. The chapter focuses on the consequences of this connection both for the creation in the 1970s and for the erosion in the 2000s of the labour relations system in Cyprus. Special emphasis is placed on the how this sustained connection in a time of crisis and austerity such as the 2010s becomes too constraining for the trade unions and damaging them further as they are discredited in the eyes of workers for the austerity policies of their political patrons.