General Information
The Nicos Poulantzas Institute (NPI) was founded in 1997 on the initiative of the political party Synaspismos, today SYRIZA – to which it is politically affiliated. It is a political, theoretical and research institute under the legal form of Civil Non-Profit Company, managed by the Assembly of its shareholders and a Board that consists of academics, politicians and activists of the Left.
NPI aims at fostering the values of the Left, systematically developing an awareness of contemporary social, ecological, political and cultural issues and exploring the emerging changes within society. It seeks to contribute to the scientific research, theory and ideology as well as the political programme of the radical and ecological Left and its cadres.
Indicative activities
- Organisation of research programmes, seminars, conferences, lectures, workshops, festivals and other types of events that cover a wide spectrum of issues.
- Publication and distribution of books, special brochures or audiovisual material focusing on Institute’s activities and other issues of broader theoretical, political or policy importance.
- Political education and seminars for cadres of the party of SYRIZA, members of the Youth of SYRIZA, MPs, elected in the local government, trade-unionists etc.
Apart from voluntary contributions of its members, the work of NPI is basically conducted by its staff, either permanent or working on specific projects, that specialises in various fields of political and social sciences, economy, philosophy, history, art etc.
Flag initiatives
Annual Lecture
Since 2007, NPI organises an annual lecture around the month of December dedicated to the memory of Nicos Poulantzas. More specifically, the “Nicos Poulantzas Annual Memorial Lecture” was launched in December 2007 and has been continuously delivered since then by eminent intellectuals from different countries on a theoretical issue of their choice. The Lecture is not intended to deal narrowly with Nicos Poulantzas’ work, but with the many issues and theoretical perspectives it covers, such as Marxism, socialism and social emancipation, world capitalism, the role of the state, social classes, political economy, political ecology, social movements, etc., which are not only theoretically interesting but can also be useful in political practice.
The first lecture was given by Professor Bob Jessop (“Political Economy, Political Ecology and Democratic Socialism”), the second by Professor Leo Panitch (“The State in the Current Capitalist Crisis and the Strategy of the Left in the 21st century”), the third by Professor Judith Butler (“Performative Politics and the Critique of State Violence”), the fourth by Professor Michael Lebowitz (“Building Socialism for the 21stCentury. The Logic of the State”), the fifth by Professor Erik Olin Wright (“Real Utopias in and beyond Capitalism”), the sixth by Professor Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (“Europa and the Bull Market”), the seventh by Professor Frank Deppe (“Authoritarian Capitalism: Democracy in decline”), the eighth by Professor Enzo Traverso (“Remembering the Future: the Political Uses of the Past”), the ninth by Professor Wendy Brown (“Neoliberalism Contra Democracy: Ten Theses”), the tenth by Professor Nancy Fraser (“Crisis of Care? On the Social Reproductive Contradictions of Financialized Capitalism”), the eleventh by Professor Angela Davis (“Abolition Feminism: Theory and Practices”), the twelfth by the sociologist and philosopher Michael Löwy (“Rosa Luxemburg’s open-ended future: Socialism or Barbarism, Internationalism or Nationalism”), the thirteenth by Professor Klaus Dörre (“A workers’ movement from the right? Causes of an imaginary revolt”), the fourteenth by Professor Manuel Castells (“Power in the Digital Age: The Legacy of Poulantzas Theory in the New Historical Context”), the fifteenth by Professor Konstantinos Tsoukalas (“For a new Republic [Politeia]?”) and the sixtheenth by Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos (“Decolonising Marxism? Marxism and Epistemologies of the South”).
Primary research and other papers and analyses
Generally the NPI work is organised around six main topics/clusters:
- Economy – Production – Sustainable Development
- Institutions – Democracy – Politics
- Labour – Welfare State – Solidarity
- Environment – Climate Crisis – Ecology
- Technology & Knowledge
- Europe & the World
NPI conducts and publishes primary research, policy papers and other kinds of analyses on a wide spectrum of topics within and beyond the aforementioned clusters. Some of the key initiatives on this field are the annual survey on Youth. Habits, beliefs and political behaviour published every year on March since 2020 and the annual survey on Working Conditions in Greece. Experiences and Attitudes around the Labour Market published every year on November also since 2020. Under the same category falls its project on Energy, which includes primary research on energy poverty in Greece as well as a series of policy papers on climate crisis, renewable energy and energy communities.
Two other periodical publications of NPI include Electoral Trends, an analysis of the political polls in Greece, published every 2-3 months since 2019 and With wide-angle lens, a semi-annual publication on global and European trends published each year on June and on December since 2020.
National, European and International Collaborations
NPI is a founding member of the Transform! Europe Network (www.transform-network.org), the European think-tank affiliated to the Party of the European Left. It is also a member of ENoP (European Network of Political Foundations) and a long standing partner of the Group of European Economists for an Alternative Economic Policy in Europe (Euromemo Group). It also has a wide range of bilateral and multilateral collaborations in Greece, in Europe but also across the world with political and research foundations, NGOs, universities, media etc.
E-mail: info@poulantzas.gr
Website: www.poulantzas.gr
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Nikos Poulantzas was born in Athens in September 1936. He studied law and social sciences in Athens, Heidelberg and Paris, where he settled since 1961 and worked as professor and director of Studies at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. He became world-renowned for his theoretical contribution to the analysis of the capitalist state, the state of emergency (fascism, fascist dictatorships), social classes, power relations, and socialist strategy. According to the well-known sociologist and political scientist Bob Jesop, Poulantzas was the most important Marxist theorist of the post-war state.
In addition to his work, which became widespread in many countries and especially in Latin America, Poulantzas was actively involved in the left and communist movements of France and Greece (member of the Communist Party of Greece and , after 1968, of the Communist Party of Greece –Interior), constituting his attitude a shining example of an organic left-wing intellectual.
