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The Centre on Social Movement Studies

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08/06/2026

Social movements in intense times. Notes for a (semiserious) auto-ethnography

This is a huge honour, whose meaning  and implications, I still have to elaborate. I am most grateful to all those who contributed to organize it, to those who have talked about my work this afternoon and to those who will be with me in the next two days. And, of course, to all those […]

01/04/2026

Critical Political Economy of the European Polycrisis

Andreas Bieler, University of Nottingham/Vincenzo Maccarrone, Scuola Normale Superiore Over the last two decades, the European Union (EU) has faced a series of intertwined crises, including the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 and the structural adjustment programmes imposed by the EU and the IMF on several member states; the increase of flows of refugees triggered […]

19/03/2026

Books Against Censorship: Libraries as Bastions of Freedom/Libri contro la censura, le Biblioteche come presidio di libertà

Parlare di censura dei libri, al giorno d’oggi, può sembrare qualcosa di anacronistico, per lo meno nei paesi che si considerano democrazie. In realtà, però, risulta adeguato e particolarmente doveroso viste le pericolose iniziative messe in campo da diversi governi e attori politici in giro per il mondo. In particolare negli Stati Uniti d’America il […]

17/03/2026

Travelling with the European Convoy for Cuba

While I write these lines, I am on a train to Milan Malpensa airport, from where I will depart in a few hours for Cuba with the European Convoy for Cuba – the air contingent of the Nuestra América Convoy, an international solidarity initiative promoted by a global coalition of associations, trade unions, and other […]

09/02/2026

Genova 2001 in historical perspective, a conference and a call for papers

The Italian-German Historical Institute of the Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK) is organising a conference on 19-20 November 2026 entitled Europe in Movement(s). Genoa 2001 and Transnational Mobilisations in Historical Perspective. Proposals are invited. The G8 summit in Genoa (19-22 July 2001) is often described as the high point of the international mobilisation against neoliberal globalisation […]

03/02/2026

Call for papers: Contentious Politics in Spain: Cycles, Transformations and New Repertoires of Contention

A Call for papers for a special issue of Partecipazione e Conflitto on “Contentious Politics in Spain: Cycles, Transformations and New Repertoires of Contention” . Over the last two decades, Spain has become a particularly fertile laboratory for the study of contentious politics. From the alter-globalisation mobilisations of the early 2000s to the anti-austerity cycle, […]

30/01/2026

Call for papers on Mobilizing memory: repression and resistance

CALL FOR PAPERS  Special issue on Mobilizing memory: repression and resistance (Memory Studies Review, 2028) Guest editors: Jamievee Bautista, Scuola Normale Superiore Stefano Filippini, Scuola Normale Superiore   This Memory Studies Review special issue is based on a conference held in November 2025 at the Center on Social Movements Studies (COSMOS), Scuola Normale Superiore in […]

20/01/2026

Extractive Capitalism, a discussion on Laleh Khalili book at SNS

From bird guano to be used as fertilizer to rare earths, the world economy and our everyday lives were dependent, and they still are, on raw materials. The mining or collection, storage, transport and commercialization of raw materials and primary commodities is at the core of Extractive Capitalism, How Commodities and Cronyism Drive the Global […]

13/01/2026

A Spring School on Colonial studies (when, what, how to…)

Organized by Scuola Normale Superiore, the school is funded by the PNRR through the MERITA, the network for talent project*. Date: 20-23 April 2026 Location: Scuola Normale Superiore, Palazzone di Cortona (AR) Total hours: 28 Max participants: 20 Language: English Application deadline: 10 February 2026 Target audience: Master student, PhD students and early-career researchers. The […]

09/01/2026

Cosmos Talks for the winter, a rich program

The winter program for our Cosmos Talks is here – 29th January, 11-12.30h. 2N Room, Palazzo Vegni Gianluca de Fazio (James Madison University, USA), Remembering Lynchings: The Racial Terror Memory Movement in the US This talk explores the rise of a memory movement over the past two decades that seeks to publicly acknowledge and memorialize […]

14/11/2025

Jewish fear and the German State before and after Oct. 7

The broad issue of Germany’s history and its relation with the country’s reaction to the Hamas attack on October 7 2023 were at the center of professor Dirk Moses talk at the “Protesting Crises: Progressive Social movements in the Face of Authoritarian Backlash” international conference. Professor Moses presented his work for a paper to be […]

06/11/2025

Polarization after Latin America’s left turn

What happened during Latin America turn to the left and how did it end, what was the reaction from the opposite political side? What kind of polarization has occurred in individual countries? These, in a nutshell, are the questions that Santiago Anria, political scientist from Cornell University, tried to answer in his talk during the […]

28/10/2025

Call for papers: Social Movements and the Law Legal Mobilization in a Comparative Perspective

This Mobilization special issue explores legal mobilization, the strategic use of legal tools by social movements to drive social and political change. As a key repertoire of contentious action, legal mobilization has generated substantial interdisciplinary scholarship, particularly within civil rights and environmental movements. Despite its increasing importance amid growing repression and far-right backlash, comparative analyses […]

28/10/2025

Antisemitism weaponized, an interview with Neve Gordon

Antisemitism is being weaponized against those who have taken the streets against the war in Gaza (Cosmos director Donatella Della Porta wrote about the case of Germany). There are many examples of the induced moral panic since the start of the war. Neve Gordon, who is professor of international law and human rights at Queen […]

20/10/0002

The Italian “Hot Summer” for a Free Palestine

The intensification of protests in Italy to present and some general reflections on what came to be known
as a global social movement for a free Palestine

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