Conceptualizing the context of collective action: an introduction

What is 'context' and why does it matter? What are the different ways of conceptualizing the context of collective action? What are the trade-offs involved in choosing one conceptualization over another? With which explanatory strategies are these conceptualizations associated? This introduction addresses these questions and outlines the three conceptualizations of the relational context of collective action discussed in this special issue: field, space, and arena. In spite of some critiques, it argues that these three meso-level conceptualizations depart from a purely 'movement-centric' perspective and offer promising leads for analyzing the relationship between collective action and its environment.