@article{01JMVR0HPVGBFVJNHFJRZA176G,
  abstract     = {{In recent years, theorists and activists championing the ‘commons’ have propounded a socio-centric idea of democratic resistance and renewal with a global address. This conception holds that the making of new social relations and practices here and now should be the main pillar of activity aiming at wide-ranging social reconstruction. The present paper complicates and qualifies this thesis. Socio-economic and technological breakthroughs can effectively serve as a catalyst for democratic change if they are adequately politicised, that is, deliberately oriented and embedded in a broader counter-hegemonic project. As a first step, the paper reviews socio-centrism and brings out its limits. But the main part is a critical inquiry into alternative cooperative enterprises set up in recent years in the northern city of Thessaloniki, Greece: a cooperative bookstore and publishing house (‘Akyvernites Politeies’), a self-organised factory (‘Vio.Me’), and a consumer cooperative (‘Bios Coop’). The three ventures are construed as ‘alter-political’ economic initiatives to highlight their distinctive political self-construction. The case study corroborates the theoretical argument by indicating that socio-economic enterprises aspiring to radical democratisation are deliberately political from the outset. Second, such social innovation needs to be integrated into, and bolstered by, expansive counter-hegemonic politics and movements, as their actors themselves point out.}},
  author       = {{Kioupkiolis, Alexandros and Karyotis, Theodoros}},
  issn         = {{1474-8851}},
  journal      = {{EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL THEORY}},
  keywords     = {{Commons,democratic transformation,socio-centric strategy,alter-politics,radical cooperativism,Thessaloniki,REPRESENTATION}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{3}},
  pages        = {{388--411}},
  title        = {{Democratic change and alter-political cooperativism : a critical view from Thessaloniki, Greece}},
  url          = {{http://doi.org/10.1177/14748851241306059}},
  volume       = {{25}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}

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