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Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies

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CRY-OUT

The project aims at mapping collective experiences by young people pursuing a just and sustainable European society in selected European countries in order to explore youth participation and attitude to engage in different political domains.

DEMOS

The focus of this project is on civil society’s alternative visions and practices of Europe. As trust in the European Union (EU) is dramatically falling amongst its citizens, research on alternative visions of Europe ‘from below’ appear all the more relevant.

EURYKA

EURYKA is a cross-national research project which provides systematic and practice-related knowledge about how inequalities mediate youth political participation.

Cosmos events

16/12/2022

Russian Military Culture, Civil-Military Relations, and Defense Reform in Putin’s Period: Searching for an Equilibrium, Kirill Shamiev, Central European University

COSMOS Talk

15:00-16:30, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore, Palazzo Strozzi (5th Floor), Piazza degli Strozzi, Firenze

07/12/2022

Reframing Immigrant Resistance in Italy and Morocco: Studying social movements through an intersectional and decolonial perspective, Teresa Cappiali, Lund University

COSMOS Talk

11:30-13:00, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore, Palazzo Strozzi (5th Floor), Piazza degli Strozzi, Firenze

30/11/2022 - 02/12/2022

Call for Papers: SWANA from Below: living, enduring, and remembering its revolutions

COSMOS Conference

Scuola Normale Superiore, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence

23/11/2022

The long fight for Iranian women's self-determination: a generational and sociological perspective, Rassa Ghaffari, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca

COSMOS Talk

14:00-15:30, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore, Palazzo Strozzi (5th Floor), Piazza degli Strozzi, Firenze

09/11/2022

Gramsci, Leaderfulness, and Black Lives Matter, Eugene Nulman, Birmingham City University

COSMOS Talk

14:00-15:30, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore, Palazzo Strozzi (5th Floor), Piazza degli Strozzi, Firenze

All events

Publications

Journal Article - 2022

Populists in power and conspiracy theories
Andrea Pirro & Paul Taggart
Looking at three cases of populists in government – Orbán in Hungary, Trump in the United States, and Chávez in Venezuela – we examine the definition of conspiring elites (who), the circumstances under which conspiracy theories are propagated (when), and the ultimate purpose of conspiratorial framing (why).

Monograph - 2022

Resisting the Backlash: Street Protest in Italy
Donatella della Porta, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi, Chiara Milan, Martín Portos & Lorenzo Zamponi
Drawing interview material, together with extensive data from the authors’ original social movement database, this book examines the development of social movements in resistance to perceived political "regression" and a growing right-wing backlash.

Journal Article - 2022

The mobilization for spatial justice in divided societies. Urban commons, trust reconstruction and socialist memory in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Chiara Milan
The article contributes to the urban studies literature and the study of social movements in divided societies by disclosing the distinctive features and mobilizing potential that the notion of urban commons retains in a war-torn society with a socialist legacy.

Journal Article - 2022

Casting a new light on the democratic spectator
Andrea Felicetti
Scholarship in relation to democratic theory tends to see spectatorship as a state in which citizens are politically uninterested, isolated, and passive. In this article, the author shows that positive spectatorship occurs when citizens show an interest in one or more political problems and, together with others, strive to understand them better.

Journal Article - 2022

Far right: The significance of an umbrella concept
Andrea Pirro
This contribution makes the case for a shift in boundaries between the (populist) radical right and the extreme right, arguing for the systematic use of the term ‘far right’.
All publications

News

10/01/2022

SNS announces 14 fully-funded PhD positions

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The Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, Italy is pleased to announce 14 PhD fellowships beginning on November 1, 2022.

16/07/2021

Prof. della Porta to lead VolkswagenStiftung-funded ECSEuro project

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Reflecting the European challenge of transnational cooperation and multiple crises, this project asks how local political initiatives across Europe enact citizenship and solidarity and contribute to the vision of a more democratic Europe from below.

09/07/2021

SNS announces 7 fully-funded PhD positions

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The Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore announces 7 fully-funded PhD positions. Deadline for applications: 21 August 2021.

28/09/2020

Four post-doctoral research positions on the pandemic

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The Scuola Normale Superiore announces four post-doctoral positions to be activated as part of the research project “After the coronavirus pandemic: The effects of the health emergency on society and knowledge.” 

All news

The Centre on Social Movement Studies (Cosmos) is a network located in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence.

It focuses on social movements as part of broader contentious politics. It promotes theoretically-driven empirical analyses on forms, dimensions, causes and impacts of social movements, in established democracies as well as authoritarian regimes. Particular attention is given to social movements as promoters of democratization processes.
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Faculty of Political and Social Sciences Scuola Normale Superiore Palazzo Strozzi Piazza degli Strozzi 50123 Firenze Italy
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