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Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies

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Publications

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Scales and forms of action in the partial demobilisation of the Italian Forum of Water Movements

Working Paper - 2016

Author: Matteo Cernison

On the 12th and 13th June 2011, about 26 million citizens blocked in Italy a major attempt to privatise the water and sewage networks of the country, approving two referendums that cancelled the main legal tools that were facilitating the access of private actors to the water services. In the years that followed the referendum… more

Student Struggles and Power Relations in Contemporary Universities. The Cases of Italy and England

Chapter in edited book - 2016

Author: Lorenzo Cini

Social movement scholars have generally disregarded the study of mobilizations within institutions. Even less well-studied are the effects that such mobilizations provoke. This is precisely the topic that the present chapter investigates. More specifically, the chapter sheds light on the type of institutional response that the recent student mobilizations in England and Italy set in… more

The Consequences of Social Movements: Policies, People and Institutions

Edited Volume - 2016

Author: Lorenzo Bosi, Marco Giugni and Katrin Uba

Social movements have attracted much attention in recent years, both from scholars and among the wider public. This book examines the consequences of social movements, covering such issues as the impact of social movements on the life course of participants and the population in general, on political elites and markets, and on political parties and… more

The integrative power of online collective action networks beyond protest. Exploring social media use in the process of institutionalization

Journal Article - 2016

Author: Elena Pavan

In this article, we aim at expanding the event-based and protest-centered perspective that is typically adopted to study the nexus between social media and movements. To this aim, we propose a network-based approach to explore the changing role that these tools play during the dynamic unfolding of movement processes and, more particularly, over the course… more

The No Ombrina/No Triv protests in Abruzzo: organisational models and scales of action.

Working Paper - 2016

Author: Matteo Cernison

This article discusses in detail the evolution of the complex no oil mobilisation in Abruzzo, observing the mechanisms that allowed the inclusion of a long lasting regional protest in a series of initiatives of national relevance. I describe the emergence of the no oil milieu in the region, observing its development under the lens of… more
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The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements

Edited Volume - 2016

Author: Donatella Della Porta and Mario Diani

The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements is an innovative volume that presents a comprehensive exploration of social movement studies, mapping the field and expanding it to examine the recent developments in cognate areas of studies, within and beyond sociology and political science. This volume brings together the most distinguished social and political scientists working in… more
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Vite di Lotta Armata. Storie di attivismo nella Provisional IRA

Monograph - 2016

Author: Lorenzo Bosi

Quali sono i percorsi che portano alcune donne e uomini ad abbracciare la lotta armata? Qual è la loro esperienza e cosa sostiene il loro impegno all'interno dei gruppi armati, anche a fronte di lunghi periodi di prigionia? Come escono dalla lotta armata e quali conseguenze sulla loro storia di vita attribuiscono a quella scelta?… more

Which Crisis? European Crisis and National Contexts in Public Discourse

Journal Article - 2016

Author: Lorenzo Zamponi, Lorenzo Bosi

Is there such a thing as “the crisis” in the European public discourse? We investigate the Great Recession as it appears in the public discourse of seven European countries (Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland). We do so through a political claim analysis conducted on the most important newspapers of each country between… more

Why the refugee crisis is not a refugee crisis

Journal Article - 2016

Author: Javier Alcalde

In the context of the European research project "Collective action and the refugee crisis", I have spent several months interviewing activists who work on the denunciation , solidarity and support of migrants and refugees. Even though they do not all share the same analysis of the causes and solutions, there is one point on which… more

Common EU policies on authorised immigration : past, present and future

Working Paper - 2015

Author: Georgia Mavrodi

Since the early 1990s, one metaphor has dominated the debates on the construction of a common EU immigration policy: ‘Fortress Europe’. The gradual adoption of a set of common rules on the entry, residence and rights of non-EU nationals was depicted as the building of a wall along the external borders of the EU to… more

News

13/11/2024

International Research Workshop – Call for abstracts: Social movements and the law: Legal mobilisation in a comparative perspective
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07/11/2024

Feminism as a Method, short introduction to the conference
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21/10/2024

What war on antisemitism in Germany?
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16/10/2024

Communication and participation and the pandemic, a book from Cosmos researchers
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16/10/2024

Professor Della Porta is the winner of the 2024 "John D. McCarthy Award"
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01/07/2024

Le basi istituzionali di un panico morale
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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.
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Faculty of Political and Social Sciences Scuola Normale Superiore Palazzo Strozzi Piazza degli Strozzi 50123 Firenze Italy
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