ABSTRACT
This volume is the product of collaboration which began at a workshop held at the University of Limerick (Ireland) in September 2012. The workshop brought together a number of early-career as well as more seasoned social scientists. The volume includes chapters from most of the workshop participants and two invited contributors who are all specialists in contentious politics, are well grounded in social movement paradigms, and have an extensive experience in conducting empirical research. The chapters have their own structure and analytical focal points but all conform to a common research framework that was discussed and formalized in the course of the Limerick workshop. The workshop framework was as follows:
This chapter sets the general parameters of the various contributions and is divided into three main sections. We begin by discussing recent developments in the literature and concentrate in particular on the shift in interest and focus in recent years from social movement analysis to contentious politics. We then summarize the various chapters of this volume and highlight the key points raised.
In the final section, we draw attention to a number of issues implicitly raised in the chapters and that relate to key methodological and theoretical questions. Some of the points we identify may be subject to debate, but they are, nonetheless, modest attempts to help advance research on contentious politics, in general (van Stekelenburg, Roggeband, and Klandermans 2013), and on weakly resourced groups, in particular.
