Laurence Cox grew up around social movements and has been involved since the early 1980s, in many different movements across several countries. Cox co-founded and co-edits the activist/academic movement journal Interface, co-directed an MA on activism in Maynooth, and works with activist PhD students. He is a senior lecturer in sociology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. His recent books include Why Social Movements Matter (2018) and, with Salar Mohandesi and Bjarke Risager, Voices of 1968 (2018). Most of his work is available free online via laurencecox.wordpress.com, academia.edu, and elsewhere. Here, Dylan Taylor talks to him about the tensions between activism and academia, the importance of Marxism in the study of social movements, and the decline of neoliberal hegemony.