Can Christian Nationalism Explain Anti-Vaccination Attitudes Against COVID-19 in Greece?
This paper examines the attitudes of the people participating in protests against COVID-19 (mandatory) vaccination in Athens, Greece. The central question is to examine whether the protesters adopt the main theses of Christian nationalism and opposition to science, as expressed and theorised in the United States, by examining an indicative sample of participants in these protests. The paper first examines the Greek context regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, it presents the theoretical context of Christian nationalism and, finally, it presents the questionnaire and the findings from field research conducted by the author during these Athens protests in summer 2021. As such, the paper contributes to the knowledge gap regarding Christian nationalism beyond the American context and introduces this topic for the first time with regard to Greece.
Dimitra Mareta
Dimitra Mareta holds a PhD in Political Science from the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences. She is currently a post-doc researcher in Political Science at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and she was a Visiting Research Fellow in Political Science at the University of Peloponnese for the academic year 2018-2019. Her research interests include state theory and theory of sovereignty, counterrevolution, counter-Enlightenment, political theology, Greek politics and politics in Southern Europe, liberalism, and neoliberalism.