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Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies

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Resources

JOURNALS

 

Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen. Analysen zu Demokratie und Zivilgesellschaft

German peer-review journal founded in 1988. Published four times a year.

Interface. A Journal for and about Social Movements

International peer-reviewed, open-access and multilingual online journal founded in 2009. Published twice a year.

Mobilization. An International Journal 

International peer-reviewed journal founded in 1996. Published four times a year.

Partecipazione e Conflitto

Italian online and open-access peer-reviewed journal founded in 2009. Published three times a year.

Research in Social Movements Conflict and Change

International peer-reviewed journal founded in 1977. Published twice a year.

Social Movement Studies

International peer-reviewed journal founded in 2002. Published four times a year.

 

BOOK SERIES

 

Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics

Published by Cambridge University Press.
General Editors: Mark Beissinger, Jack A. Goldstone, Michael Hanagan, Doug McAdam, Suzanne Staggenborg, Sidney Tarrow, Elisabeth J. Wood, Deborah Yashar.

Mobilization Series on Social Movements, Protest and Culture

Published by Ashgate.
Series Editor: Hank Johnston

Oxford Studies in Culture & Politics

Published by Oxford University Press.
Series Editors: Bob Clifford and James Jaspers

Protest, Culture & Society

Published by Berghahn Books.
Series Editors: Kathrin Fahlenbrach, Martin Klimke, Joachim Scharloth

Social Movements, Protest, and Contention

Published by University of Minnesota Press.
Series Editors: Bert Klandermans and David S. Meyer

Protest and Social Movements Published by Amsterdam University Press

Series Editors: Jan Willem Duyvendak and James M. Jasper

 

RESEARCH CENTERS AND DEPARTMENTS

 

CADIS – Centre d’Analyse et d’Intervention Sociologiques

École des Haute Édutes en Science Sociales

Director: Philippe Bataille

Founded in 1981 by Alaine Touraine, since the very beginning CADIS focused on the sociology of action and social movements. Today, the study of mobilizations intertwine with three main axis of research: social actors and historical changes, the emergence of new subjectivies in post-industrial societies, and the crisis of urban environments.

Center for the Study of Democracy

University of California Irvine

Convenors: David Meyer and David Snow

The centre develops research aiming at understanding democratic development and democratic processes, focusing amongst other topics on social movements and collective action in the United States and across the globe.

Centre for the Study of Global Media and Democracy

Goldsmith College

Directors: Nick Couldry and Kate Nash

Co-Directors: Natalie Fenton and James Martin

Established in 2007, the centre develop research at the interconnection of media, communication, politics and sociology, considering amongst other topics global social movements, advocacy organisations and new media.

Centre for the Study of Social and Political Movements

University of Kent

Director: Chris Rootes

Etablished in 1992, the centre focuses on contemporary forms of social and political movements and collective action, with some emphasis upon environmental movements.

Center for the Study of Social Movements

University of Notre Dame

Director: Rori McVeigh

Established in 2006, the center supports an interdisciplinary approach to the study of collective political challenges expressed via protest, collective violence, and other extra-institutional collective action.

Centro de Estudos Sociais

University of Coimbra

Director: Boaventura de Sousa Santos

Established in 1978 the Center for Social Studies is a scientific institution devoted to research and advanced training in the area of the social sciences and humanities.

Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit

London School of Economics

Director: Mary Kaldor

The research unit focuses on how ordinary people shape or try to shape the decisions that affect their lives with a particular focus on human security and civil society, including social movements and civic associations.

CRAPUL – Centre de Recherche sur l’Action Politique

University of Lausanne

Established in 2002, the centre aims at promoting collective research on political action from the point of view of comparative political sociology.

Department of Sociology, University of California Santa Barbara

Chair: Verta Taylor

The department supports multi-level and multi-method approaches to social inquiry. For 30 years, the department has been at the forefront of research and graduate training in social movements, revolutions and social change.

Department of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh

Chair: Suzanne Staggenborg

The department fosters collaborative research between faculty and students and allows for specializations in sociological research, with a focus on social movements and politics and culture.

Forum for Civil Society and Social Movement Research

University of Gothenburg

Launched in 2011 to enhance the communication and collaboration of social movement scholars in the Nordic Countries, the Forum for Civil Society and Social Movement Research has its base at the Department of Sociology, with close ties to national and international research networks studying social movements.

Institute for Protest and Social Movement Studies

The institute is primarily a place for research. Its aim is to deliver and spread theoretically guided, empirically grounded and both scientifically and politically relevant knowledge in the field of protest and social movements. Along with its research activities, the institute also intends to become a center for research cooperation with other institutions at home and abroad.

Movement Media Research Action Project

MMRAP was founded in 1986 by the co-directors William Gamson and Charlotte Ryan to support marginalized constituencies’ understanding of and access to media. Based in Boston, MA, its mission is to strengthen progressive social movements working toward social justice and inclusive participatory democracy.

Observatori del Conflicte Social

University of Barcelona

Academic coordinators: Salvador Aguilar, María T. Bretones y Jaime Pastor

The Social Conflict Observatory is linked to the research group Research on Social Conflict and Change. It aims at developing knowledge about the logics of social conflict and change. The dominant analytical approach is relational: relationships between individual are the basic social units of social inquiry; and it relies as well on a critically oriented positive sociology.

Politics and Protest Workshop

CUNY Graduate Center, New York City

Coordinators: James M. Jasper and John KrinskyFounded in 2008, this weekly meeting draws students and faculty to discuss research and theory in progress on any topics having to do with protest and politics. It is open to all visitors.

 

PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION NETWORKS

 

ASA Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements

Founded in 1980, the section fosters the study of emergent and extra-institutional social forms and behavior, particularly crowds and social movements. With about 800 members, it is one of the largest in the American Sociological Association.

ASA Section on Labor and Labor Movements

The Labor and Labor Movements Section strives to be a forum for existing work, to create networks and graduate mentoring opportunities that will stimulate interaction and increase the rigor and creativity of future work, to bring researchers, applied sociologists, and rank-and-file members of the labor movement together for discussion and debate.

CES Social Movement Research Network

Established in 2011, the CES Social Movements Research Network brings together scholars interested in social movements, popular protest and contentious politics in Europe, as well as in the ways in which social movements interact with spheres such as the media, culture and memory, democratic institutions, policing, and the longer-term outcomes of social movements both positive and negative.

ECPR Standing Group on Participation and Mobilization

Established in 2004, the ECPR Standing Group on Participation and Mobilization provides a forum for different schools of participation research to meet, compare approaches, and develop new research strategies.

ECPR Standing Group on Political Violence
The Standing Group aims to provide a collaborative network and infrastructure for international junior and senior scholars working on aspects of political violence, including guerrilla warfare, insurgency, terrorism, rebellion and civil war.

ESA RN25- Social Movement Research Network

The ESA Social Movement Research Network provides organize panels sessions in general and mid-term conferences on social movements from a sociological perspective.

 

BLOGS AND RESEARCH WEBSITES

 

Mobilizing Ideas

Founded in 2011, the blog Mobilizing Ideas is linked to the Center for the Study of Social Movements at the University of Notre Dame. It publishes invited original essays on social movements, social change, and the public sphere by leading scholars and engaged activists.

Open Democracy

Founded in 2001, it is an open access electronic magazine that publishes high quality analysis on relevant political and social issues, including social movements and collective actions.

ResponsiveGov

The website of the ResponsiveGov reserarch project, which aims at investigating to what extent governement respond to collective and publicly expressed opinion – also in the form of protests – between elections.

Tributes to Charles Tilly

A website with an extensive collection of annotated links to web resources about the life and work of Charles Tilly, a leading scholar in social movement studies.

 

PODCASTS AND VIDEOS

 

Social Movements, Political Violence and the State. 

LSE Public Lecture of Donatella della Porta
Event organiser: Department of Government Comparative Politics, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Can Social Movements Replace Parties? 
Danilo de Biasio interview to Donatella della Porta for Radio Popolare.

News

16/05/2023

CFP: Analyzing protest in the digital age. Challenges and opportunities in combining text and video sources

Organizers Donatella della Porta, Scuola Normale Superiore Swen Hutter, Freie Universität Berlin & WZB Berlin Social Science Center Place and date WZB Berlin Social Science Center, December 7-8, 2023

22/02/2023

15 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 15 PhD fellowships beginning on November 1, 2023. The deadline for applications is April 13, 2023.

16/02/2023

Applications now open! Fourth Edition of the ECPR-COSMOS Summer School on Methods for the Study of Political Participation and Mobilisation

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Applicants must send their application materials no later than March the 17th 2023.

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.

Publications

Journal Article - 2023

Resisting right-wing populism in power: a comparative analysis of the Facebook activities of social movements in Italy and the UK

Niccolò Pennucci
This paper aims to present a comparative study of the civil society reaction to right-wing populism in power through social media, by looking at cases in Italy and the United Kingdom.

Journal Article - 2023

Emotions in Action: the Role of Emotions in Refugee Solidarity Activism

Chiara Milan
This article investigates the different types of emotions that result from participation in refugee solidarity activism, investigating how they change over time and to what extent they explain why individuals remain involved in action in spite of unfavorable circumstances.

Journal Article - 2023

‘Love is over, this is going to be Turkey!’: cathartic resonance between the June 2013 protests in Turkey and Brazil

Batuhan Eren
This study addresses the question of why and how a protest can inspire individuals in distant countries. Taking the June 2013 protests in Turkey and Brazil as cases, it investigates the reasons why the Turkish protests were framed as one of the inspirational benchmarks by some Brazilian protesters.

Journal Article - 2023

Mutual aid and solidarity politics in times of emergency: direct social action and temporality in Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic

Lorenzo Zamponi
From the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and the social distancing measures introduced created a series of social problems and needs that were partially addressed in Italy as well as in other countries by grassroots mutual aid initiatives. While many of these initiatives were strongly rooted in the Italian social movement and civil society landscape and the choice to engage in mutual aid activities was the result of long years of reflection and planning, the article shows how strongly the temporality of emergency affected the nature of these initiatives, their development and their outcomes, in particular with regard to the extraordinary number of people who volunteered and their relationship with politicisation processes.

Monograph - 2023

Populism and (Pop) Music

Manuela Caiani, Enrico Padoan
The book provides a detailed account of the links between production of popular culture to the rise of populism and contributes to studies on populism and popular culture in Italy, using a comparative approach and a cultural sociology perspective

Monograph - 2022

Labour conflicts in the digital age

Donatella della Porta, Riccardo Emilio Chesta, Lorenzo Cini
From Deliveroo to Amazon, digital platforms have drastically transformed the way we work. But how are these transformations being received and challenged by workers? This book provides a radical interpretation of the changing nature of worker movements in the digital age, developing an invaluable approach that combines social movement studies and industrial relations. Using case studies taken from Europe and North America, it offers a comparative perspective on the mobilizing trajectories of different platform workers and their distinct organizational forms and action repertoires.

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 - 2021

Learning from Democratic Practices: New Perspectives in Institutional Design

Andrea Felicetti
Drawing from literature on democratic practices in social movements and democratic innovations, the article illustrates three ways to advance institutional design in the wake of the systemic turn.

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 - 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.