Introduction: Making Sense of Collective Action and Protests

For a long time, the social sciences have known that conflicts explain much of what moves societies and their transformations and dynamism. Marx saw it: the class struggle is the engine of history, a fundamental assertion that, however, fails to capture all the groups that, in the twenty-first century, complain and protest. Conflicts involving different social groups and what we refer to here as the “contentious actions” that take place in the public space can have different expressions: from protests within a country’s laws through to disturbances and different organized manifestations of discontent and the almost volcanic eruptions that convulse daily life and overspill the state. This is what the notion of “repertoire” of collective action captures.