logo

Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies

logo

Summer School on Youth Political Participation in Times of Inequalities

EURYKA and COSMOS invite applications for the upcoming Summer School on “Youth Political Participation in Times of Inequalities” which will be held in Florence (Italy) in July 2018, from Tuesday 17th to Sunday 22nd.

Picture description

We are pleased to announce that the call for applications is now open for the Summer School on Youth Political Participation in Times of Inequalities, sponsored by the Reinventing Democracy in Europe: Youth Doing Politics in Times of Increasing Inequalities project (EURYKA) and the Centre on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS). The Summer School will take place in Florence, Italy, from the 17th to the 22th of July 2018 and will open to 20 graduate students as well as early career researchers throughout Europe and beyond with a specialized interest in youth participation and democracy, in different fields of study and methodological traditions, including political science, political sociology, political communication, political anthropology and sociology. It will address fundamental issues such as:

  • How do young people form their opinions and take actions to bring about social and political change?
  • What strategies do young people develop to cope with growing inequalities, collectively and individually?
  • How do these strategies relate to issues of democracy, power, politics, policy-making, social and political participation (online and offline) and the organization of economic, social and private life?
  • How can participation of young citizens be encouraged and increased through their interest in involvement and how democratic models could be reshaped in order to make room for young people’s interests and aspirations?
  • Which are the prospects and potentials for youth agency and political engagement online and offline in Europe? What do technological developments mean for young people’s ways of doing politics?

The Summer School will bring together young scholars and more established academics interested in these issues through an intensive curriculum of lectures with established scholars and workshops with young activists. From the 19th to the 22nd of July 2018, in parallel to the Summer School, European Alternatives will hold a Democracy Campus for activists. The campus will promote the emergence of transnational political and cultural forms of activism through workshops, masterclasses, seminars and performances. It will deal with issues ranging from precarity, to municipalism, to new media and artistic strategies, and will address questions of how activism can influence institutions and build democracy across borders. All the Democracy Campus events will be open to Summer School participants and there will be co-organized events.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

The Summer School will include four keynote speeches. Confirmed keynote speakers are:

  • Gema M. Garcia Albacete, Department of Social Sciences, Universidad Carlos III, Madrid.
  • Donatella Della Porta, Political and Social Sciences Department, European University Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Florence.
  • Jennifer Earl, School of Sociology, University of Arizona, Tucson.
  • Marco Giugni, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Geneva.

DATES AND LOCATION

The Summer School will take place in Florence and will last 6 teaching days, from the 17th to the 22th of July 2018.

APPLICATION

Applicants should email a cover letter (i.e. two pages) in which they explain how their research is in line with the topic covered by the Summer School, a 500-­‐word abstract of a proposed academic paper, and a curriculum vitae to euryka.summerschool@gmail.com. The deadline for applications is the 18th of December 2017.

Applicants will be informed of the outcome by email no later than 30th of January 2018. Those offered places must confirm their participation within 10 days, after which places may be offered to applicants on the reserve list.

REQUIREMENTS

Participants to the Summer School will be required to write and submit a 7000-8000 word paper before the 1st of June 2018. The paper will be presented during the Summer School, providing a unique experience for discussion and feedback from established academics and young activists. English will be the working language and therefore students are expected to have a good command of written and spoken English.

Participants will be also required to complete the mandatory readings for morning lectures and to actively participate in discussion during morning and afternoon sessions.

ENROLLMENT FEES

There are no participation fees in the Summer School. Lunches, welcome drinks, a farewell dinner, academic materials, computing and internet facilities will be available for free for selected participants. Travel and accommodation costs are not included, however the EURYKA project can offer 2 travel and accommodation grants (€500 each) to selected participants. Please indicate in your submissions whether you would like to apply for these grants.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Scientific Committee: Lorenzo Bosi, Marco Giugni and Stefania Voli

CONTACTS

Email contact for application, questions and clarifications about the Summer School: euryka.summerschool@gmail.com

FINANCIAL AND LOGISTIC SUPPORT

The Summer School is kindly supported by:

  • Reinventing Democracy in Europe: Youth Doing Politics in Times of Increasing Inequalities project (EURYKA). The EURYKA project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 727025.
  • Centre on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS) at the Scuola Normale Superiore.

News

22/02/2023

15 fully funded PhD positions

alt
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

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

10/01/2022

SNS announces 14 fully-funded PhD positions

alt
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

alt
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

alt
The Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore announces 7 fully-funded PhD positions. Deadline for applications: 21 August 2021.

28/09/2020

Four post-doctoral research positions on the pandemic

alt
The Scuola Normale Superiore announces four post-doctoral positions to be activated as part of the research project “After the coronavirus pandemic: The effects of the health emergency on society and knowledge.” 

Publications

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 - 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 - 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.

Journal Article - 2022

(Water) Bottles and (Street) Barricades: The Politicisation of Lifestyle-Centred Action in Youth Climate Strike Participation

Lorenzo Zamponi, Anja Corinne Baukloh, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi, Donatella della Porta, Martín Portos
This article explores the forms of action adopted by participants in two Fridays For Future (FFF) strikes, focusing on the repertoires of action of (young) climate justice protesters. Drawing on protest survey data, it shows demonstrated that young protesters do not participate less in claim-based action than older cohorts. Furthermore, a process of politicisation can be seen to be unfolding that leads to increased commitment in both lifestyle and political forms of participation – at least among active milieus.

Journal Article - 2022

Performing (during) the Coronavirus crisis: The Italian populist radical right between national opposition and subnational government

Andrea Pirro
The first year of COVID-19 confirmed the standing of the populist radical right in Italy. While sitting in opposition at the national level, Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy and Matteo Salvini's League shared common criticism of the Conte II government but experienced diverging trajectories in terms of popularity. These changes can be partly attributed to the different agency of their leaderships. Overall and collectively considered, the Italian populist radical right broke even during the first year of COVID-19, but the crisis exposed the first cracks in Salvini's leadership.

Journal Article - 2021

Far-right protest mobilisation in Europe: Grievances, opportunities and resources

Pietro Castelli Gattinara, Caterina Froio & Andrea Pirro
In this article, we bridge previous research on the far right and social movements to advance hypotheses on the drivers of far-right protest mobilisation based on grievances, opportunities and resource mobilisation models. We use an original dataset combining novel data on 4,845 far-right protest events in 11 East and West European countries (2008–2018), with existing measures accounting for the (political, economic and cultural) context of mobilisation.

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.

Edited Volume - 2021

Contentious Migrant Solidarity. Shrinking Spaces and Civil Society Contestation

Donatella della Porta & Elias Steinhilper
Building upon social movement and migration studies, this book maps the two sides of ‘contentious solidarity’: a shrinking civic space and its contestation by civil society.

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.