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Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies

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Archive

Donatella della Porta

Donatella della Porta is professor of sociology at the European University Institute, where she directs the Center on Social Movement Studies (Cosmos). She is also directs a major ERC project Mobilizing for Democracy, on civil society participation in democratization processes in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. Among her very recent publications are: […]

Tuomas Yla-Anttila

Tuomas Yla-Anttila is a visiting fellow at COSMOS, EUI, and research fellow at the Helsinki Research Group for Political Sociology at the University of Helsinki. He currently works on the research project Climate Change and Civil Society (CLIC) looking at the media debate on climate change, focusing on justice claims presented in this debate and […]

Manès Weisskircher

Manès Weisskircher is currently a PhD researcher at the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the European University Institute. His dissertation project focuses on the animal rights movement. Apart from that, he is also interested in other social movements and in political economy. Previously, he studied political science, international development and economic history in […]

Cédric Masse

Cédric Masse is finishing a doctoral dissertation in sociology at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon. His main current research focuses on social movements related to alter-globalisation in the context of Portugal. More precisely, through these movements, he deals with the questions of mobilisations, praxes and identities, and more largely, with […]

Julia Rone

Julia Rone is currently a PhD researcher at the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the European University Institute. Her research focuses on the social mobilizations against copyright and in defence of data privacy. In 2013 she graduated from the Oxford Internet Institute with a thesis on Anonymous Bulgaria and the politics of hacking. […]

Mariana Mendes

Mariana S. Mendes is a first year doctoral researcher at the Social and Political Science Department of the European University Institute, working under the supervision of Donatella della Porta. Previously, she completed two MAs, the first in International Affairs (International Security) at Sciences Po Paris and the second one in Nationalism Studies at Central European […]

Riccardo Emilio Chesta

I studied Sociology at the University of Trento (B.A. cum laude, 2009) and at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris (M.A. Trés bien 2011). In 2011-12 I’ve spent a semester as visiting student at the Humboldt University, Berlin and then in 2012-13 I have been Teaching Assistant […]

Jonas Bergan Draege

Jonas Bergan Draege is a PhD researcher in the Department of Social and Political Science at the European University Institute. His PhD project focuses on the relationship between pro-democracy movements and political parties in hybrid regimes. Bergan Draege earned his Mphil with distinction in Modern Middle Eastern Studies at St. Antony’s College, the University of […]

Lars Erik Berntzen

Lars Erik Berntzen (1986) hails from the city of Bergen on the west coast of Norway. He holds a B.A (2009) and M.A (2011) in Sociology from the University of Bergen (UiB). Under the supervision of Professor Donatella della Porta he is conducting research on anti-Islamic rhetoric and mobilization in Western Europe. The project title […]

Gary T. Marx

is Professor Emeritus from M.I.T. He has worked in the areas of race and ethnicity, collective behaviour and social movements, law and society and surveillance studies. He received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. He has also taught there, at Harvard University, the University of Colorado and been a visiting professor at […]

Oleg Zhuravlev

I was born in the Soviet Union, in Russia in 1987. I began doing research in sociology while I was a student at Moscow State University. During my time at Moscow State University, I took part in an informal scholarly seminar where we studied contemporary western sociology and began our own research projects. This interaction […]

Parthena Xanthopolou-Dimitriadou

I received my bachelor in Sociology from the Aegean University, Greece, MSc in Social Policy and Social Interventions from Utrecht University, the Netherlands and MSc in Social Organization and Social Change from University of Crete, Greece. I have completed the Pedagogical Training Program for Secondary Education teachers of the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education […]

Viviana Asara

Viviana Asara is a visiting student at the European University Institute and a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Environmental Science (ICTA) of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She is currently undertaking research on degrowth and democracy, and the political ecology of the indignados movement in Spain. She holds a master’s degree in Environmental Policy […]

Anna Subirats Ribas

Anna Subirats Ribas holds a degree in Geography from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB, Barcelona) and a MSc in Urban Studies from University College London (UCL, London). Prior to becoming a Doctoral Researcher at the Department of Political and Social Science at the European University Institute (EUI, Florence), she worked for three years as a […]

Prisicilla Álamos-Concha

I am PhD candidate in Political Science at the Université catholique de Louvain. Currently I am Visiting PhD student at EUI under the supervision of Mrs. Donatella Della Porta, studying the Political Violence (theoretical & empirical) under a comparative approach.My PhD thesis addresses the causes and mechanisms of the mass mobilization in overthrowing political regimes […]

News

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.

28/09/2020

Four post-doctoral research positions on the pandemic

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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.