Eleonora Desiata is a PhD candidate in Political Science & Sociology at Scuola Normale Superiore and a member of the Center on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS).
Her current research focuses on the political influence of self-managed spaces on municipal institutions in two Italian city cases, Bologna and Naples. Particularly, it investigates the role of mutualism and direct social actions in shaping pathways of influence over local institutional politics.

Born in November 1994, in 2015 she obtained a BA in International Relations & Diplomacy cum laude from the University of Bologna (Forlì), after spending one year at Sciences Po Paris. In 2017 Eleonora earned a Master’s degree in Economics & Management of Government from Bocconi University, with a thesis on party activism and the red political subculture in contemporary Emilia-Romagna.

Research interests: activism, political participation, social policy, political organisations, representation, and mutualism