This article presents the main theories on social movements raised in the 70's: the Resource Mobilization Theory, the Political Process Theory and the Theory of the New Social Movements. Then, the article discusses how those theories had to reshape themselves to face the criticisms they received as well as the empirical transformations the activism went through during the last decades, which stressed its cultural and transnational dimensions.
Social movements' theories; Collective mobilizations; Transnational activism; Culture and political action