Two Decades of Transnational Social Movements in Europe

In this chapter, we discuss several key trends in the making of contentious politics in Europe in the past two decades, especially at the European transnational level. We start with a brief discussion of the Global Justice Movement that proved to be one of the most relevant social movements of the early 2000s in Europe. The second part presents three different waves of protests linked to economic policies and inequalities, while the third section analyses the tension between the rise of progressive social movements on race, class and the environment, on the one hand, and the accompanying steady development of far-right movements in multiple European countries, on the other hand. We conclude by briefly discussing the potential effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on mobilizations in Europe.