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Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies

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Philip Balsiger

Member

I study the interactions of movements with corporations, and I was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute. I received my Ph.D. as a joint degree from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and Sciences Po Paris in 2011 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne before joining the EUI. In my research I study the repertoires and dynamics of contention in market arenas. My Ph.D. and forthcoming book compares the emergence and dynamics of the anti-sweatshop movements in Switzerland and France, and explains how this movement provoked market change. Papers building on this research focus on the repertoire of political consumption, the role of tactical competition for market transformation, and the interaction dynamics of outcomes. I continue to investigate the role of social movements in the creation and transformation of markets, studying in particular the markets for ethical fashion and the domain of food politics. Regarding social movement theory, I am interested in developing interactionist approaches to the study of movements’ tactical action repertoires and dynamics in different interaction fields and arenas.

Research interests: social movements, markets, political consumption, organization, and repertoires

News

Publications

Edited Volume - 2026

Conspiracism and Political Conflict

Manuela Caiani, Marco Solinas, Hans-Jorg Trenz

Monograph - 2025

Free download for "Contentious Politics of Global Health Movements"

Donatella Della Porta, Stella Christou

Journal Article - 2025

Communication creates partial organization: A comparative analysis of the organizing practices of two climate action movements, Youth for Climate and Fridays for Future Italy

Marco Deseriis, Lorenzo Zamponi, Diego Ceccobelli
This article focuses on a neglected aspect of the climate action movement Fridays for Future, namely, the relationship between its mediated communication practices and its early organizational processes. Drawing from a strand of organizational communication that underscores the constitutive dimension of communication to organizing processes, we analyze the significance of mediatized leadership and networked communication for the foundation and early development of two national chapters of Fridays for Future: Youth for Climate (YFC) Belgium and Fridays for Future Italy (FFFI).

Journal Article - 2025

Power resources, territory and labour conflicts in the logistic sector

Donatella Della Porta, Marco Antonelli