Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies

Movimenti del Mondo

Movimenti del Mondo (Movements of the World) is a series of events promoted by the Scuola Normale Superiore and organized by Donatella della Porta (SNS) together with COSMOS research fellows and members.

Solidarity at Sea – The Politicization of Search and Rescue in the Mediterranean

Date: 16/05/2019

Place: 5:30pm - Altana, Scuola Normale Superiore, Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze

Category: Movimenti del Mondo

Abstract:

Movimenti del Mondo – Series of debates and documentaries/movies

African youth on the move. The 2011 Senegalese uprising and other protest movements against ‘Presidents for Life’

Date: 06/06/2018

Place: Scuola Normale Superiore, Department of Political and Social Sciences, Conference Hall “l’Altana” - 3.30 p.m. - 6.30 p.m.

Category: Movimenti del Mondo

Abstract:

The Berlinale price-winning documentary film ‘The Revolution won’t be televised’ (2016) is a close-up of the massive youth uprisings that took place in Senegal in 2011 when a new grassroots movement emerged. Led by two rappers and a journalist, thousands took to the streets to state that they were “fed up” (Y’en a marre) with the ruling president Abdoulaye Wade

ICELAND IN MOVEMENT – From the streets to the crowdsourced constitution

Date: 29/11/2016

Place: Sala Altana, Palazzo Strozzi, Piazza degli Strozzi n.1, Firenze

Category: Movimenti del Mondo

Abstract:

The eight event of this series will focus on a decade of political turmoil in Iceland starting from the 2008 financial crisis, to the pots and pans revolution, the crowdsourced constitution of 2011, to the massive protests following the release of the Panama papers in 2016.

Bloody Sunday

Date: 13/10/2016

Place: Room Altana, Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze

Category: Movimenti del Mondo

Abstract:

Work and University after Globalization

Date: 25/05/2016

Place: Istituto di Scienze Umane e Sociali, Scuola Normale Superiore, Conference Hall “l’Altana” - Palazzo Strozzi

Category: Movimenti del Mondo

Abstract:

The event will focus on work and university after globalization with a keynote speech by Guy Standing and a documentary on the Chilean student movement.

Paths of Sustainability, Ethical Consumption and Participation. Towards a New Model of Citizenship

Date: 09/03/2016

Place: Altana Conference Hall, Istituto di Scienze Umane e Sociali, Palazzo Strozzi

Category: Movimenti del Mondo

Abstract:

This event will focus on forms of political participation that are related to consumerism and production.

The Arab Uprising in a Global Context

Date: 02/12/2015

Place: Conference Hall l'Altana, Istituto di Scienze Umane e Sociali, Palazzo Strozzi

Category: Movimenti del Mondo

Abstract:

A debate and documentary screening to reflect on the Arab uprisings in their global context from an historical perspective

The struggle for same sex marriages in Italy and the US. Social Movements, Cultural Artifacts, and Public Opinion

Date: 17/09/2015

Place: Conference Hall l'Altana, Istituto di Scienze Umane e Sociali, Palazzo Strozzi

Category: Movimenti del Mondo

Abstract:

A debate and documentary screening on the struggles for same-sex marriages in Italy and the United States.

Fifteen Years of Water Struggles. Lesson Learned from Bolivia to Italy

Date: 11/06/2015 - 11/05/2016

Place: Istituto di Scienze Umane e Sociali, Scuola Normale Superiore, Conference Hall “l’Altana” - Palazzo Strozzi

Category: Movimenti del Mondo

Abstract:

This event focuses on the mobilizations that are opposing to water privatization in the world, and in particular on the emergence and on the characteristics of the Bolivian and Italian movements that are promoting the idea of water as a common.

Was that just the beginning? Talking about Gezi after two years

Date: 21/05/2015

Place: Altana Conference Room, Istituto di Scienze Umane e Sociali, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence

Category: Movimenti del Mondo

Abstract:

The documentary screening and debate focuses on the 2013 protests in Turkey. These protests, arisen following the decision of building a new mall in the Gezi Park in Istanbul, lately shifted to more generic political issues. In this way the event had a great resonance at the national level, permitting to the protest to spread to the rest of the country.

News

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

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

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.”

26/02/2020

CFP Athens conference "Capitalism, Democracy, Contention: A Decade of Crisis" 13-15 May 2020

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Aspiring to shed light on the Greek experience in the era of crisis in a comparative, inter-disciplinary perspective, the Laboratory on Contentious Politics (Department of Political Science and History, Panteion University, Athens), the Centre on Social Movement Studies (Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence) and the Hellenic Political Science Association are organizing an international conference to be held at Panteion University, on 13, 14 and 15 May 2020.

12/12/2019

Prof. Donatella Della Porta to Be Awarded Honorary PhD

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On Friday 13, 2019, the University of the Peloponnese (PSIR) will award an honorary doctorate to Professor Donatella Della Porta, Dean of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore.

22/07/2019

Protest for a future: international report on #FridaysForFuture and the climate strike

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Composition, mobilization and motives of the participants in Fridays For Future climate protests on 15 March 2019, in 13 European cities. A multi-country collaboration report, with contributions from COSMOS researchers Lorenzo Zamponi, Donatella della Porta, Martín Portos, Niccolò Bertuzzi and Daniela Chironi.

Publications

Edited Volume - 2021

Varieties of Populism in Europe in Times of Crises

Manuela Caiani & Paolo Graziano

Populism is booming across all the nuances of the political spectrum. It occupies relevant positions in national parliaments, in governmental coalitions with mainstream parties or as successful challengers of the political status quo. This volume sheds new light on the topic from different methodological and theoretical angles and offers evidence from a variety of cases on the ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions on populism’s emergence and consolidation in Europe over the past 30 years.

Journal Article - 2021

European populism before the pandemic: ideology, Euroscepticism, electoral performance, and government participation of 63 parties in 30 countries

Paul Taggart & Andrea Pirro

This contribution is conceived as a resource on the state of European populist parties before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. It reports on cross-national comparative findings generated by data collected from 30 European countries as to the state of populist parties in one calendar year (2019) and provides an extensive qualitative overview of the national cases.

Journal Article - 2021

Forging, bending, and breaking: Enacting the “illiberal playbook” in Hungary and Poland

Andrea Pirro & Ben Stanley

We first argue that illiberal changes are ideologically founded and identify how both populism and nativism figure in the policymaking of illiberals in power. We then show how these practices emerge from a common “illiberal playbook”—a paradigm of policy change comprising forms of forging, bending, and breaking—and elaborate on the notion that illiberal governments are using legalism to kill liberalism.

Journal Article - 2021

Populism between voting and non-electoral participation

Andrea Pirro & Martín Portos

The article focuses on a neglected aspect of populist mobilisation, i.e. non-electoral participation (NEP), and elaborates on the extent to which populist party voters engage politically outside the polling station. While challenging common understandings of populism as inherently distrustful and apathetic, and protest as an exclusive practice of the left, the study critically places NEP at the heart of populism in general, and populist right politics in particular.

Monograph - 2021

Migrant Protest. Interactive Dynamics in Precarious Mobilizations

Elias Steinhilper

This book explores the interactions and spaces shaping the emergence, trajectory, and fragmentation of migrant protest in unfavorable contexts of marginalization.

Journal Article - 2020

We protect the forest beings, and the forest beings protect us: Cultural resistance in the Ecuadorian Amazonia

Leonidas Oikonomakis

The inhabitants of Sarayaku have forged an anti-colonial, anti-extractivist, and anti-capitalist resistance culture. How did that culture develop? How is it articulated? Moreover, how is kawsak sacha positioned in the discussion over the rights of Nature in Latin America? Based on three months of ethnographic research in the community of Sarayaku and more than twenty-five interviews with community members, this article addresses those important questions and argues that securing legal protection may not be a long-term resistance strategy.

Monograph - 2020

The Contentious Politics of Expertise. Experts, activism and grassroots environmentalism

Riccardo Emilio Chesta

Based on mixed-methods research and ethnographic fieldwork at various sites in Italy, this book examines the relationship between expertise and activism in grassroots environmentalism. Bridging the sociology of expertise and contentious politics, the book shows how conflict transforms, rather than inhibits, expertise production into a ‘contentious politics by other means’.

Journal Article - 2019

Alliance building and eventful protests: comparing Spanish and Portuguese trajectories under the Great Recession

Martín Portos & Tiago Carvalho

Social movement research has shed light on the relationship between processes of alliance building and multiple factors related to political opportunities, framing, identities, networks and resource mobilization. However, less is known about the impact of eventful protests on coalition building dynamics.

Monograph - 2019

Social Mobilization beyond Ethnicity. Civic Activism and Grassroots Movements in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Chiara Milan

This book offers an in-depth investigation of the emergence and spread of social mobilizations that transcend ethnicity in societies violently divided along ethno-national lines. Using Bosnia Herzegovina as a case study, the book explores episodes of mobilization which have superseded ethno-nationalist cleavages.

Journal Article - 2019

Close ever, distant never? Integrating protest event and social network approaches into the transformation of the Hungarian far right

Andrea Pirro, Elena Pavan, Adam Fagan & David Gazsi

In this article, we extend our understanding of fringe politics to include relational and thematic elements, namely, the relationship of far-right collective actors with their broader network and the claims made within it. By focusing on often neglected relational and thematic aspects, the study provides new ways to analyse fringe collective actors, the relationship with their environment and the evolution of such a relationship over time.