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Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies

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ComPart

The project investigates how mass media, institutional actors and citizens shape communication and participation under Covid-19 emergency.

TraPoCo

The project TraPoCo “Transnational Political Contention in Europe” contributes to the advancement of research on mobilisation and contestation practices (protests, legal activism, strikes, advocacy) of actors such as social movements, activists, civil society organisations, trade unions, etc. in transnational political arenas on issues related to European integration.

AUTHLIB

Neo-authoritarianisms in Europe and the liberal democratic response (AUTHLIB) is a multidisciplinary project that aims to explore the varieties of neo-authoritarian, illiberal ideologies in Europe, their social, psychological and historical causes, their organisational background and their political implications.

GOLDSTEIN

"GOLDSTEIN – Debunking Political Uses of Denialisms and Conspiracy Theories in EU" addresses the political uses of new denialisms and conspiracy theories have played a crucial role in the European Union through an unitarian conceptual and analytical framework that can offer a more comprehensive critical explanation of these phenomena.

INEQUALITIES

"Inequalities: Social sustainability and gender inequalities: culture, politics and economy" explores with a mixed method approach gender inequalities (their perception and definition by the participants) in three different but interrelated fields (cultural, political and economic), rarely taken into consideration simultaneously by scientific research: in particular in academia, business companies and political participation & mobilization.

FIERCE

FIERCE aims at providing sound theoretical and practical knowledge and tools to revitalize alliances between the feminist movement, civil society and political decision makers in a context of growing social inequalities, political disaffection and strengthening of populist radical right anti-gender actors and discourses.

ECS_EURO

ECS_Euro Project takes up the question of how new approaches can be identified at the local scale vis-à-vis the longstanding challenges for Europe to establish cross-border social cohesion and cooperation in particular regarding the social fields of migrant rights, housing and care work.

The contentious politics of climate change

The project analyses political conflicts over climate change at local, national and transnational levels, looking at both institutional actors and civil society actors.

Cosmos events

05/06/2023 - 16/06/2023

2023 ECPR-COSMOS Summer School on Methods for the Study of Political Participation and Mobilisation

Summer School

Palazzo Strozzi, Florence

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

All events

Publications

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.

Journal Article - 2023

Reflective Inclusion: Learning from Activists What Taking a Deliberative Stance Means.
Andrea Felicetti, Markus Holdo
We propose to adopt a principle we call “reflective inclusion,” which allows us to engage abductively with new actions that might expand and deepen our understanding of what deliberation may look like.

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

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).

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.
All publications

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.

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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