An introduction to this volume: Motivations for social protest and the contexts in which they are embedded

2In this introduction chapter, I observe that the study of social protest requires more integration between theorizing about motivations for social protest and their contextualization. This is precisely why the aims of this edited book are to collect and showcase a stream of modern theorizing and research on motivations for social protest set within or across very different (social, political, or cultural) contexts, as this will enable and stimulate future integrative efforts. After discussing the need for such integration, I preview the volume’s first section on motivations for social protest that are thought to be applicable across contexts, and then preview its second section on social protest within specific cultural and political contexts. I conclude by looking ahead to the contributions to this volume in those two sections with an eye to encouraging efforts towards more theoretical and empirical integration.