The developed investigation, whose empirical results and conclusions will be presented, aims to contribute to the enrichment of the scientific problem of collective action in contemporary societies, attempting to acknowledge the relevance and consequences on citizenship that may have some of the most decisive social inequalities of today. How are the power and the rights of participation being exercised in modern Europe? Taking Europe as an object of sociological observation, this research aims to contribute to the current debate between social inequality, citizenship and social inclusion, assessing the influence that social structures, knowledge society, labour inequalities and political inequalities have on a set of collective action practices, which allows to characterize the integration on the extra-electoral model of citizenship legitimized by the Western-European democracies. It is presented the main assumptions and theoretical foundations towards an updated reconstruction of a theory on the relations between social inequality and collective action in contemporary societies, trying to elucidate the sociological problems of the constraints / opportunities of the social structures on the formation of collective action (Elder-Vass, 2010), the systemic consequences (Bihr & Pfefferkorn, 2008) and multidimensionality of social inequalities (Costa, 2012), the appropriation / divestiture of resources of various kinds and their impact on citizenship (Crossley, 2002), the place of social classes in collective action (Nunes, 2011), or the constraints of the inequalities of power in individual and collective agency (Mouzelis, 2008). The development of a structural analysis in the study of collective action (Smith & Fetner, 2007), rooted in the social conditions of citizens and their powers of democratic participation and inclusion, will enable a fruitful discussion regarding the problematic of collective action and social movements (Ruggiero & Montagna, 2008; Della Porta & Diani, 2006).

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inequality,collective action practices,Europe,transnational analysis