Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the historical context of the crisis, through the role of agency, to the level of individual mobilization. It studies the historical-political context of the crisis, and aims to explain how it was conducive to the development of popular protests and also studies the role of human agency in translating crisis into mass protests. Contemporary social movement theory emphasizes that the actions of goal-driven individual's human agents are pivotal in linking broad social change and protest mobilization. The book examines the individual-level processes underlying protest participation by individual citizens. Using both semi-structured interviews with protesters and survey work with samples representative of the population of the Reykjavk area. The book summarizes the findings and discusses how the application of social movement theory helps to explain the evolution of the Icelandic financial crisis protests, thus addressing the usefulness of the theories.