Political violence in Greece through the PVGR database: evidence from the far right and the far left

The paper presents a new database (PVGR) on political violence in Greece from 2008 to 2019. PVGR monitors violent episodes reported mainly in online and printed media, stemming both from the far right and the far left. It provides the first existing measure of political violence in Greece for a timespan of eleven years. The uniqueness of our database is two-fold: first, it covers both ideological kinds of extremism: right wing and left wind; second, it registers the whole stairway of low-intensity violent escalation, from physical attacks to terrorism. We gather data on all the internal-supply aspects of political violence: we identify its size, the actors involved and their ideological background, the targets. We further provide measures of frequency, intensity, escalation and geographical distribution, which permit us to configure political violence in crisis-ridden Greece. We find an important increase in political violence in the period under study. We contribute to the literature of political violence in several ways. First, we offer the first comprehensive database of political violence in Greece. Second, we typologize evidence in analytical categories and measures, thus contributing to the classification of the phenomenon beyond ideological doctrines. Third, we clarify similarities and differences between the two kinds of violence, which implies specific policy implications.