logo

Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies

logo

Publications

Type:
Author(s):
Title:
Year:

A situated understanding of digital technologies in social movements: Media ecology and media practice approaches

Chapter in edited book - 2018

Author: Alice Mattoni

The chapter tackles two main aspects related to the interaction between social movements and digital technologies. First, it reflects on the need to include and combine different theoretical approaches in social movement studies so as to construct more meaningful understanding of how social movement actors deals with digital technologies and with what outcomes in societies.… more

Comparing hybrid media systems in the digital age: A theoretical framework for analysis

Journal Article - 2018

Author: Alice Mattoni and Diego Ceccobelli

The relationship between media and politics today is deeply entrenched in the wide use of information and communication technologies to the point that scholars speak about the emergence of hybrid media systems in which older and newer media logics combine. However, it is still unclear how the configuration of hybrid media systems changes across countries… more

Far-right activism in Hungary: Youth participation in Jobbik and its network

Journal Article - 2018

Author: Andrea L. P. Pirro and Dániel Róna

The Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik) qualifies as one of the most successful far-right organisations in contemporary Europe. Through its swift rise in popularity and entry to parliament, the ‘movement party’ has been able to alter the Hungarian public discourse, existing patterns of party competition, additionally exerting effects on the government’s policy agenda. At… more
Picture description

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
Picture description

I post, you rally, she tweets…and we all occupy. The challenges of hybrid spatiality in the Occupy Wall Street mobilizations

Chapter in edited book - 2018

Author: Alice Mattoni

After the Occupy Wall Street mobilizations in the USA and other countries across the world, many scholars emphasized the importance of protest camps and social media platforms for these protests. However, what has not been systematically explored is how the two are intertwined. Exploring the interconnections between camps and platforms, this chapter shows how a… more

Mobilizing in transnational contentious spaces: linking relations, emotions and space in migrant activism

Journal Article - 2018

Author: Elias Steinhilper

Despite proliferation of political protest by migrants in recent years, analyses from a social movement perspective remain scarce. This lacuna is not coincidental, but theoretically grounded. According to dominant movement theories, migrants are unlikely subjects of mobilization due to legal obstacles, scarce resources and closed political and discursive opportunities. The article therefore explores how marginalized… more

Movement parties of the far right: The organization and strategies of nativist collective actors

Journal Article - 2018

Author: Andrea Pirro, Pietro Castelli Gattinara

The scholarship on the far right has often interpreted nativist organizations as straddling the conceptual space between party and movement. These groups contest elections in order to gain representation in office, yet they also seek to mobilize public support to engage contentious issues like social movements. Despite theoretical commonalities, very little empirical research has focused… more

New Technologies as a Neglected Social Movement Outcome: The Case of Activism against Animal Experimentation

Journal Article - 2018

Author: Manès Weisskircher

Recently, scholars have focused on a growing number of social movement consequences. However, one important type of intended outcome has been neglected: the development of new technologies. Connecting to key insights from Science and Technology Studies, the aim of this article is to contribute to the literature on the effects of activism in two specific… more
Picture description

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

Politicizing Solidarity in Times of Crisis: The Politics of Alternative Action Organizations in Greece, Italy, and Spain

Journal Article - 2018

Author: Lorenzo Zamponi, Lorenzo Bosi

Alternative action organizations (AAOs) are collective bodies engaged in carrying out alternatives to dominant socioeconomic and cultural practices through actions that aim to provide people with alternative ways of enduring day-to-day difficulties and challenges in hard economic times. They are often interpreted as merely “philanthropic” actors, although it is not rare to see them go… more

News

01/07/2024

Le basi istituzionali di un panico morale

alt
Attraverso una lunga rassegna di casi concreti, Donatella Della Porta, direttrice di Cosmos, descrive il processo per cui la lotta istituzionale all'antisemitismo in Germania, inizialmente promossa dalla società civile progressista, si è trasformata nella costruzione di un apparato statale e di una struttura di potere ufficiale come strumento di razzializzazione e repressione.

Publications

Journal Article - 2023

Resisting right-wing populism in power: a comparative analysis of the Facebook activities of social movements in Italy and the UK

Niccolò Pennucci
This paper aims to present a comparative study of the civil society reaction to right-wing populism in power through social media, by looking at cases in Italy and the United Kingdom.

Journal Article - 2023

Emotions in Action: the Role of Emotions in Refugee Solidarity Activism

Chiara Milan
This article investigates the different types of emotions that result from participation in refugee solidarity activism, investigating how they change over time and to what extent they explain why individuals remain involved in action in spite of unfavorable circumstances.

Journal Article - 2023

‘Love is over, this is going to be Turkey!’: cathartic resonance between the June 2013 protests in Turkey and Brazil

Batuhan Eren
This study addresses the question of why and how a protest can inspire individuals in distant countries. Taking the June 2013 protests in Turkey and Brazil as cases, it investigates the reasons why the Turkish protests were framed as one of the inspirational benchmarks by some Brazilian protesters.

Journal Article - 2023

Mutual aid and solidarity politics in times of emergency: direct social action and temporality in Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic

Lorenzo Zamponi
From the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and the social distancing measures introduced created a series of social problems and needs that were partially addressed in Italy as well as in other countries by grassroots mutual aid initiatives. While many of these initiatives were strongly rooted in the Italian social movement and civil society landscape and the choice to engage in mutual aid activities was the result of long years of reflection and planning, the article shows how strongly the temporality of emergency affected the nature of these initiatives, their development and their outcomes, in particular with regard to the extraordinary number of people who volunteered and their relationship with politicisation processes.

Monograph - 2023

Populism and (Pop) Music

Manuela Caiani, Enrico Padoan
The book provides a detailed account of the links between production of popular culture to the rise of populism and contributes to studies on populism and popular culture in Italy, using a comparative approach and a cultural sociology perspective

Monograph - 2022

Labour conflicts in the digital age

Donatella della Porta, Riccardo Emilio Chesta, Lorenzo Cini
From Deliveroo to Amazon, digital platforms have drastically transformed the way we work. But how are these transformations being received and challenged by workers? This book provides a radical interpretation of the changing nature of worker movements in the digital age, developing an invaluable approach that combines social movement studies and industrial relations. Using case studies taken from Europe and North America, it offers a comparative perspective on the mobilizing trajectories of different platform workers and their distinct organizational forms and action repertoires.

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 - 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.

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.

Journal Article - 2021

Populism between voting and non-electoral participation

Andrea Pirro & Martín Portos
The article focuses on a neglected aspect of populist mobilisation, i.e. non-electoral participation (NEP), and elaborates on the extent to which populist party voters engage politically outside the polling station. While challenging common understandings of populism as inherently distrustful and apathetic, and protest as an exclusive practice of the left, the study critically places NEP at the heart of populism in general, and populist right politics in particular.