“…Broader expressions of solidarity, outside extended family and kinship networks, are rare. One might expect emergency situations such as the current sovereign debt crisis and economic crisis to enhance collective spirit, solidarity and altruism; however, such attitudes are only enhanced in the context of high pre-existing social capital (Bolino et al 2002 ;Dynes 2006 ), which is not the case in Greece. This explains why there is evidence that even under the current critical conditions, social capital remains low (Helliwell et al 2013 ), and consequently, there has been no effective bottom-up, collective mobilisation which might help to manage the 'unnecessarily high' (Matsaganis 2013 : 33) social cost of the Greek crisis.…”