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Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies

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Publications

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How Social Movements can Save Democracy

Monograph - 2020

Author: Donatella della Porta

Social Movements: An introduction, 3rd edition

Monograph - 2020

Author: Donatella della Porta, Mario Diani

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The Contentious Politics of Expertise. Experts, activism and grassroots environmentalism

Monograph - 2020

Author: Riccardo Emilio Chesta

Based on mixed-methods research and ethnographic fieldwork at various sites in Italy, this book examines the relationship between expertise and activism in grassroots environmentalism. Presenting interviews with citizens, activists and experts, it considers activism surrounding infrastructure in urban areas, in connection with water management, transport, tour- ism and waste disposal. Through comparisons between different political… more
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Resistere alla crisi. I percorsi dell'azione sociale diretta

Monograph - 2019

Author: Lorenzo Bosi, Lorenzo Zamponi

L’Italia della crisi appare schiacciata tra apatia e risentimento. Ma guardando in basso, si possono vedere forme di resistenza che raramente emergono sulla scena pubblica, e che riattualizzano l’azione collettiva, riposizionando l’individuo nella sfera pubblica. Dalle grandi organizzazioni sociali alle occupazioni abitative, dai gruppi di acquisto solidale alle fabbriche recuperate, passando per i circoli culturali… more
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Social Mobilization beyond Ethnicity. Civic Activism and Grassroots Movements in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Monograph - 2019

Author: Chiara Milan

This book offers an in-depth investigation of the emergence and spread of social mobilizations that transcend ethnicity in societies violently divided along ethno-national lines. Using Bosnia Herzegovina as a case study, the book explores episodes of mobilization which have superseded ethno-nationalist cleavages. Bosnia Herzegovina emerged from the 1992–95 war brutally impoverished and deeply ethnically divided,… more
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I movimenti animalisti in Italia. Strategie, politiche e pratiche di attivismo.

Monograph - 2018

Author: Niccolò Bertuzzi

In Italia, l’attenzione verso gli animali è in costante crescita, come si evince dall’interesse di opinione pubblica e partiti politici, e dall’emergere di stili di vita che promuovono una revisione del rapporto con le altre specie. Analizzando questi (e altri) aspetti, il libro si focalizza nello specifico su coloro che si occupano a livello organizzato… more
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Political Strategies and Social Movements in Latin America. The Zapatistas and Bolivian Cocaleros

Monograph - 2018

Author: Leonidas Oikonomakis

This book investigates how social movements form their political strategies in their quest for social change and -when they shift from one strategy to another- why and how that happens. The author creates a model which distinguishes between two different roads to social change: one that passes through the seizure of state power and one… more
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Social Movements and Civil War : When Protests for Democratization Fail

Monograph - 2018

Author: Donatella della Porta, Teije Hidde Donker , Bogumila Hall , Emin Poljarevic

This book investigates the origins of civil wars which emerge from failed attempts at democratization. The main aim of this volume is to develop a theoretical explanation of the conditions under which and the mechanisms through which social movements' struggles for democracy ends up in civil war. While the empirical evidence suggests that this is… more
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Social Movements, Memory and Media: Narrative in Action in the Italian and Spanish Student Movements

Monograph - 2018

Author: Lorenzo Zamponi

Cultural factors shape the symbolic environment in which contentious politics take place. Among these factors, collective memories are particularly relevant: they can help collective action by providing symbolic material from the past, but at the same time they can constrain people's ability to mobilise by imposing proscriptions and prescriptions. This book analyses the relationship between… more
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The Contentious Politics of Higher Education. Struggles and Power Relations within English and Italian Universities

Monograph - 2018

Author: Lorenzo Cini

Drawing on neo-institutionalist and social movement approaches, this book analyses the impact that recent student mobilizations have brought about within Italian and English universities in terms of student services, curriculum organization, and governance structures. Arguing that the university context is central to explaining the variety and diversity of this impact, the author examines the effects… more

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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