DOI: 10.4324/9781003394280-1 Introduction Minorities are currently confronted in Europe and elsewhere with the rise of ethnic populism, tides of illiberalism, and more often than not, suspicion from majorities. 1 Since the 1960s, described as the “golden era” of active minorities, 2 systematic patterns of discrimination have been brought to the fore, and a sig- nificant shift in attitudes has been observed. Discrimination based on ethnicity, race, religion, gender, and other types of identities remains pervasive around the world, despite important efforts to change society toward greater social justice. Five decades later, and despite attempts for reforms, discrimination against ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities also connected to a lack of socio-legal recognition is nevertheless still perpetuated on many levels. Since the 1970s, the study of social movements as political phenomena, connected to particular political contexts, has explored the political conditions enabling the mobilization of social collective action. 3 The interactions among the various actors involved have been studied from the perspective of com- petition for power, the objects of their claims, as well as membership of such movements. In parallel, social movements studies on minority groups have gradually shifted away from the observation of the conditions of deprivation among these groups more towards the analysis of the resources and structures relevant to social mobilization. 4 New social movements scholarship that cov- ered environmental, feminist, and peace causes emerged in the 1980s–1990s 1 B. Huszka, et al. ‘Legal Mobilisation for Minority Rights in Central and Eastern Europe: An Agenda for Action’, Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, April 2022, Policy Brief 162/2022, available at www.eliamep.gr/en/publication/νομική-κινητοποίηση-για-δικαιώματ α-μ/at 3. 2 S. Moscovici, Social Influence and Social Change, Academic Press: London, 1976. 3 C. Demetriou, ‘The Radicalization of Social Movements’, in J. Stone et al. (eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Race, Ethnicity and Nationalism, Wiley Blackwell: Hoboken, NJ, 2020, 421–436, at 422. 4 The trend is particularly visible in the US where the factors that enables social movements to mobilize such as coalition formation, were emphasized. (Cf. C. Demetriou, ‘The Radicalization of Social Movements’, in J. Stone et al. (eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Race, Ethnicity and Nationalism, Wiley Blackwell: Hoboken, NJ, 2020, 421–436, at 422). 1 Minority groups at the crossroads of social change A socio-legal framework Kyriaki Topidi and Eugenia Relaño Pastor