1. Late Neoliberalism and Its Discontents: An Introduction

This chapter first outlines the types of crises to which movements had to react as they unfolded at the EU level. Second, it discusses the types of political responses to the crises, and their social and political consequences, setting the contextual political challenges for social movements in the Great Recession. Throughout, it stresses cross-time evolution and cross-national differences in the development of the crises, with particular attention to the European periphery—that is, the area hardest hit, but also the place where social movements against austerity have been more active, although in varying forms. It thus offers a dynamic view of protest in times of austerity, viewing it as relational, constructed and emerging, as it develops from critical junctures that reduce the power of structural constraints, increasing the power of agency.