Greek Syriza briefly converted antipolitical energy into state power, then collapsed

Evidence

In Greece, developments followed a sensitively different course. There, a small party already in existence—Syriza, an electoral alliance formed in 2004 from a dozen communist and post-Trotskyist groupings—succeeded in channeling the new antipolitical energies. With both center-left PASOK and its right-wing rival New Democracy having either failed to manage the fallout from the financial crisis or capitulated to the austerity demands of the so-called troika (made up of the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the IMF), Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras led the party to second place in the 2012 elections and to a resounding victory in January 2015, becoming prime minister. Together with his finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, Tsipras opposed the dictates of the European Commission and the IMF, briefly making him a global symbol of anti-neoliberal defiance. For a moment, it appeared that antipolitical affect could be successfully converted into power through the classical transmission belt of the party. In July 2015, the Greek electorate rejected the reforms proposed by the Euro establishment. Tsipras had reached the apex of his popularity, only to reverse course out of fear of a Grexit. Syriza itself soon transformed into a conventional cartel party; the leadership distanced itself from the rank and file, and its support cratered. — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 193

Categorization

• XREF: Direct factual anchor for the reader’s periodization goal — shows the antipolitics-era case where the classical party transmission belt briefly still worked before failing. — connects to: Left-populist strategy, not just structural context, made Syriza the antiausterity vehicle. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 173
• QUESTION: Why did Syriza succeed where other antipolitical forces did not — was it the pre-existing party structure that made conversion possible, or the sheer depth of the Greek crisis?