There is a widespread impression that, while during the period of post-dictatorship, Greek society was "party-dominated" and politically charged, today it is politically apathetic. Historically and comparatively with the cases of other member states of the European Union, Greek civil society, consisting of interest groups, non-governmental organizations, and various associations, is considered to be weak and crushed between the so-called individualism of the Greek citizen and the post-dictatorship "party domination". It is a prevailing opinion that Greeks are no longer mobilized by political parties or other non-partisan organizations.
Although all these are true to a large extent, in recent years there has been a range of collective activities that do not originate from political parties or are directed by the central state. Examples include the periodic surge of social movements, the development of volunteerism, and the shift of public attention and mass media towards non-governmental organizations. A particular example is the social mobilization for providing assistance to the earthquake victims in Athens in September 1999, which also served as the inspiration for this book.
This book is an empirical case study inspired by the central hypothesis of the work. The working hypothesis states that, alongside the relatively atrophic civil society, as recorded in the statistics of organizations and registered members of associations, there has developed an informal, i.e. unofficial and therefore relatively unknown civil society. However, the inability to accurately measure this less visible civil society does not make it any less significant for political and social analysis and understanding of the state-society relations.