Lorenzo Mosca

Research Fellow

Lorenzo Mosca is Associate Professor at the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence. He has been involved in several national and European research projects such as “Europub.Com – The Transformation of Political Mobilisation and Communication in European Public Spheres” (FP5), “Demos – Democracy in Europe and the Mobilization of Society” (FP6), “Younex – Youth, unemployment, and exclusion in Europe” (FP7). He currently coordinates a local research unit in the project “Comparing Social Media and Political Participation across EU” (http://webpoleu.altervista.org).

He has been among the founding members of the Journal Partecipazione e Conflitto (http://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/paco). He is associate editor of the journals “South European Society and Politics” and “International Journal of E-Politics”, as well as member of the editorial board of the “European Journal of Communication”. He is fellow of Cosmos – The Centre in Social Movement Studies (http://cosmos.eui.eu).

Research interests: political participation, political communication, online politics, and movement parties

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News

06/10/2017

Open Democracy Post - "The streets will always be ours" - Catalonia, a referendum from below

Although some still conceive of the referendum as launched by a pro-independence vanguard, the elite story falls short of explaining the resilient participation of a large part of Catalan civil society. This post at Open Democracy addresses this issue from a different angle.

24/09/2017

New Publication Out - "Social movements and referendums from below. Direct democracy in the neoliberal crisis"

A timely publication to shed light on the link between social movements that formed as a consequence of the 2008 financial crash and the referendums' dynamic and results.

25/08/2017

Donatella Della Porta con Yanis Varoufakis alla 13esima conferenza ESA

Wednesday, August 30th (8pm-9.30pm) professor della Porta, who directs the Center on Social Movement Studies(Cosmos), will dialogue with Yanis Varoufakis, Greek Minister of Finance during the first Tsipras government, about the future of Europe and the social consequences of neoliberal economies

Publications

Monograph - 2018

Social Movements and Civil War : When Protests for Democratization Fail

Donatella della Porta, Teije Hidde Donker , Bogumila Hall , Emin Poljarevic

This book investigates the origins of civil wars which emerge from failed attempts at democratization. The main aim of this volume is to develop a theoretical explanation of the conditions under which and the mechanisms through which social movements' struggles for democracy ends up in civil war.

Monograph - 2017

Social movements and referendums from below. Direct democracy in the neoliberal crisis

Donatella Della Porta, Francis O'Connor, Martin Portos and Anna Subirats Ribas

Out now "Social movements and referendum from below", the first book that bridges the gap between social movement studies and research on direct democracy. It draws on social movement theory to understand the nature of popular mobilisation in referendums using unique case studies such as the referendum on independence in Scotland, the consultations on independence in Catalonia, the Italian referendum on water, the referendum on the Troika proposals in Greece and the referendum on the debt repayment in Iceland.

Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies