Cosmos
The Centre on Social Movement Studies
Journal Article - 2019
Author: Lorenzo Zamponi
In the context of the economic crisis, research on collective action has increasingly focused direct social actions, that escape the traditional state-addressing repertoires of action and focus on a self-changing society: boycotts, solidarity action, political consumerism, alternative finance (e.g. crowdfunding, food banks), collective purchasing groups, occupations, self‐management, free legal advice and medical services, to mention… moreJournal Article - 2019
Author: Camilo Cristancho, Katrin Uba, Lorenzo Zamponi
To what extent does the economic crisis affect support for political protest? Since the outburst of the financial crisis in 2008 many protests have been mobilized against national governments and their austerity policies. In some countries, these actions were described in the media as having little support among the general public, while elsewhere these actions… moreJournal Article - 2019
Author: Elias Steinhilper
En Allemagne, l’« été des migrations » de l’année 2015 a entraîné une série de restrictions de la loi sur le droit d’asile et provoqué un débat public de plus en plus hostile envers les populations étrangères. Les Afghans, qui constituent l’une des principales communautés de migrants de ce pays, ont été particulièrement touchés par ces revirements politiques. Leurs… moreJournal Article - 2019
Author: Priska Daphi, Lorenzo Zamponi
In recent years, scholarly interest in the interconnections between social movements and memory has been growing significantly. In this article, we outline and discuss this emerging focus of research on the movement-memory nexus with the goal of systematizing it and pointing to ways forward. We begin by delineating the interdisciplinary nature of the field, its… moreJournal Article - 2019
Author: Leonidas Oikonomakis
How do social movements form their political strategies? The relevant theory pays considerable attention to structure, and argues that when political opportunities are open, movements are more likely to opt for a systemic political strategy; when they are closed, movements are expected to take a more revolutionary turn. However, political opportunities can make some options… moreJournal Article - 2019
Author: Riccardo Emilio Chesta, Carlotta Caciagli, Lorenzo Zamponi
This article aims to explore the forms of collective actions that are emerging in new sectors of digital capitalism. In particular, it enquires into the mobilisation of food delivery workers that has been developing since 2016 in four Italian cities: Milan, Turin, Bologna and Florence. Despite the high level of precarisation and atomisation that characterise… moreJournal Article - 2019
Author: Raffaele Bazurli
Amid the so-called ‘refugee crisis’, South European cities have experienced far-reaching societal transformations, magnified by flaws in multi-level governance. How can urban actors cope with such critical questions, which affect their communities and yet lie beyond their full jurisdiction? This article contends that left-leaning governments and ideologically sympathetic social-movement activists at the city-level are incentivised… moreJournal Article - 2019
Author: Lorenzo Zamponi
Focusing on mobilizations around work, this article sheds light on generational identity as it emerges in activists involved in labor struggles in Italy in the past few years. Do Italian “millennial” activists perceive themselves as part of the same political generation? What are its main traits? And are the contextual elements that define it linked… moreJournal Article - 2019
Author: Riccardo Emilio Chesta, Michael Burawoy
In this conversation, Michael Burawoy discusses how he discovered the sociology of Gramsci in radically diverse contexts — from a vibrant post-colonial Zambia to Analytical Marxism in Chicago. The British sociologist reconnects the travels of these debates to contemporary public sociology, updating Gramsci’s key sociological concepts with the critical scholarship of Pierre Bourdieu, the social… moreJournal Article - 2019
Author: Stefan Rother and Elias Steinhilper
Focussing on the inclusion of those primarily affected as stakeholders (refugees and other migrants), this article addresses a key ambition of the compacts themselves. We employ an ‘inside‐outside’ perspective and firstly ask: which groups participated in the consultative processes, what agenda did they set ‘inside’ the meetings, what alliances did they establish and how did… more28/03/2025
Journal Article - 2023
Journal Article - 2023
Journal Article - 2023
Journal Article - 2023
Monograph - 2023
Monograph - 2022
Monograph - 2022
Journal Article - 2021
Monograph - 2021
Journal Article - 2021
