The importance of understanding hot to promote collective action

This special issue aims to provide novel directions in research on collective action, bringing together both leading and promising scholars in collective action research. The special issue includes one methodological and eight empirical articles, targeting both advantaged and disadvantaged group members from three continents (Northern and Southern America, Asia, Europe), considering different types of intergroup relations (based on ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexual orientation), and distinct collective action forms (nonviolent or normative collective action, and violent or nonnormative collective action). The proposed studies focus a) on the antecedents that may foster or inhibit collective action, b) on potential moderators of effects on collective action, and c) on the strategies that can be used to promote it, like intergroup contact. To achieve these aims, the studies employed experimental, longitudinal, and correlational methodologies, and considered nonstudent samples to improve ecological validity. The special issue can inspire researchers interested in working on collective action and in promoting a more equal society