The Long Shadow of Golden Dawn

The Long Shadow of Golden Dawn examines how one of Europe’s most notorious neo-Nazi movements moved from the political margins into parliament, and what remained after its electoral collapse and criminal conviction.

Emerging from the turmoil of Greece’s financial crisis, Golden Dawn transformed anger over austerity, migration and political disillusionment into an authoritarian politics built around violence. Drawing on analysis of the movement’s digital propaganda and interviews with its voters, Georgios Samaras traces how resentment and fear became political identities and collective action.

The book also follows Golden Dawn after its defeat. Although the organisation disappeared from parliament and its leadership was convicted, the ideas and political conditions that sustained it remain embedded in Greek public life. Placing Greece within the wider resurgence and mainstreaming of the European far right, the book explains how extremist movements grow, how digital politics helps them build communities, and why their influence can outlast the organisations themselves.