Manuela Caiani

Research Fellow

Manuela Caiani is Associate Professor at the Institute of Scienze Umane e Sociali at the Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS) of Pisa-Florence. She has published several articles and books on topics such as Europeanization of civil society actors, Social movements and political mobilization, social capital and public sphere, right wing extremism in Europe and the USA. Among her research interests also political violence and terrorism and qualitative methods. She has been involved in several international research projects (also under EU research programs such as FP4, FP5). She has coordinated research units for individual projects and grants received (Marie Curie 2011-13, FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF, n° 252957; Research Grant Jubilaumsfonds, ONB, Oesterreichische National Bank, 2010-2012, project n. 14035; Post-Doctoral TRA Fellowship, START Center, University of Maryland; Funding Award, CNR (Italian Research Council). She has also been invited as a guest speaker and guest professor from 8 universities in Europe and USA. She has participated as panel organizer and or/paper presenter to the most important political science national and international conferences (among which the ECPR, CES, IPSA, MidWest) and she has been a referee of over 20 leading political science and sociology journals and publishers. She published in, among others, the following journals: Mobilization, Acta Politica, European Union Politics, South European Society and Politics, RISP and for the following publishers: Oxford University press, Ashgate, Palgrave.

Research interests: europeanization, extreme right politics, radical internet politics, and qualitative research methods

News

08/06/2017

Call for Papers - Cosmos Conference "The Contentious Politics of Higher Education. Student Movements in Late Neoliberalism"

The Centre on Social Movement Studies, directed by Professor Donatella Della Porta, calls for papers addressing the recent global wave of student protests for a two-days conference to bel held in Florence, at the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS), on 15-16 November 2017.

19/05/2017

Video available for the International Conference – Beyond Borders: Refugees and Struggles in Europe Mobilization, Solidarity and Political Challenges in the Long Summer of Migration

Watch the video of the International Conference – Beyond Borders, which was held at Palazzo Strozzi on May 12, 2017

19/05/2017

Marco Deseriis wins Best Paper Award at the Cedem17 Conference for e-Democracy & Open Government

Dr. Marco Deseriis, Marie Curie Fellow and Research Fellow at Cosmos, has won the Best Paper Award at the Cedem17 Conference for e-Democracy & Open Government (Danube University, Krems Au Donau, Austria)

Publications

Journal Article - 2017

The Electoral Success of the Radical Left: Explaining the Least Likely Case of the Communist Party in Graz

Manès Weisskircher

Recently, scholars have shown a growing interest in radical left parties (RLPs). In terms of electoral success, the rise of the KPÖ Graz, the Communist Party in Austria’s second biggest city, represents perhaps the most counterintuitive case in Western Europe. This analysis shows how the party has managed to ‘own’ the issue of housing and to exploit local political opportunities in order to be electorally successful. The findings point to the importance of agency and the subnational level for RLPs, and highlight more general questions in the study of this party family.

Journal Article - 2017

Non-deliberative politics in deliberative democracy: distinct approaches for different actors

Andrea Felicetti

In this paper Andrea Felicetti first illustrates the main ideas of the systemic turn, explores the distinction between ‘deliberative’ and ‘non-deliberative’ politics and investigates the main arguments justifying non-deliberative politics. Then, he builds upon these arguments to shed new light on the relationship between deliberative and non-deliberative politics. He identifies three distinctive actors in deliberative systems (political institutions, empowered agents, and public space actors). Finally, he argues that deliberative democrats should adopt three different approaches (intensive, moderate, and free) in order to assess whether the use of non-deliberative politics by each of these actors is legitimate.