logo

Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies

logo

Publications

Type:
Author(s):
Title:
Year:

Forging, bending, and breaking: Enacting the “illiberal playbook” in Hungary and Poland

Journal Article - 2022

Author: Andrea Pirro & Ben Stanley

In recent years, Central and Eastern Europe have furnished several examples of illiberalism in power. The most prominent and consequential cases are Fidesz, which has ruled in Hungary since 2010, and Law and Justice (PiS), which has ruled in Poland since 2015. In both cases, illiberal governments have embarked upon an extensive project of political… more

Labour conflicts in the digital age

Monograph - 2022

Author: Donatella della Porta, Riccardo Emilio Chesta, Lorenzo Cini

Participatory governance in megaprojects: the Lyon–Turin high-speed railway among structure, agency, and democratic participation

Journal Article - 2022

Author: Giovanni Esposito, Andrea Felicetti, Andrea Terlizzi

Megaprojects are increasingly common across countries and attract substantial political attention from a variety of actors. Recent studies have highlighted the need to move from an understanding of megaprojects as linear and rational processes towards a more nuanced approach that accounts for non-linear and conflictual aspects. Participatory governance is often proposed as a valuable resource… more

Performing (during) the Coronavirus crisis: The Italian populist radical right between national opposition and subnational government

Journal Article - 2022

Author: Andrea Pirro

The first year of COVID-19 confirmed the standing of the populist radical right in Italy. While sitting in opposition at the national level, Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy and Matteo Salvini's League shared common criticism of the Conte II government but experienced diverging trajectories in terms of popularity. The first had enjoyed growing support since… more

Populism in power and its socio-economic policies: An assessment of European evidence

Journal Article - 2022

Author: Manuela Caiani e Guglielmo Meardi

The growing interest in the populist phenomenon worldwide, which previously was centred on its protest and opposition functions, now includes its role in government. As a result in the recent years, research has shifted from the study of populism as an opposition, anti-system movement to the question of what populist governance and populist policies are.… more

Populists in power and conspiracy theories

Journal Article - 2022

Author: Andrea Pirro & Paul Taggart

The populist use of tropes such as conspiracy theories plays an increasingly important role in their politics. Populism and conspiracy theories present a number of common traits – Manichaeanism, a sense of victimhood, and an ambivalence towards representative politics – and populists’ use of conspiracy theories is politically purposeful. Targeting a conspiring elite serves to… more
Picture description

Resisting the Backlash: Street Protest in Italy

Monograph - 2022

Author: 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. With a focus on Italy and the reaction to increasing inequalities and welfare state retrenchment policies, it examines opposition to the government… more
Picture description

Social Movements Prefiguring Political Theory

Chapter in edited book - 2022

Author: Sophia Wathne

Adding to the growing literature on social movements as knowledge and theory creators, this chapter wants more social movement research to focus on the content of the political theories created by social movements, as an outcome of their morality. This chapter argues that prefigurative social movements create political theory through the interplay of their internal… more

Solidarietà, mutualismo, resistenza: l’azione collettiva in Italia dalla crisi economica a quella pandemica

Journal Article - 2022

Author: Lorenzo Bosi, Lorenzo Zamponi

Le molte forme di solidarietà e mutualismo dal basso che si sono manifestate in questi anni, sia nel contesto della crisi economica sia in risposta alla pandemia di Covid-19, dalle grandi organizzazioni sociali alle occupazioni abitative, dai gruppi di acquisto solidale alle fabbriche recuperate, passando per i centri sociali e le sperimentazioni di welfare dal… more

The mobilization for spatial justice in divided societies. Urban commons, trust reconstruction and socialist memory in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Journal Article - 2022

Author: Chiara Milan

The article contributes to the urban studies literature and the study of social movements in divided societies by disclosing the distinctive features and mobilizing potential that the notion of urban commons retains in a war-torn society with a socialist legacy. Specifically, it investigates how urban space and urban commons are reclaimed in a post-conflict and… more

News

13/11/2024

International Research Workshop – Call for abstracts: Social movements and the law: Legal mobilisation in a comparative perspective
alt

07/11/2024

Feminism as a Method, short introduction to the conference
alt

21/10/2024

What war on antisemitism in Germany?
alt

16/10/2024

Communication and participation and the pandemic, a book from Cosmos researchers
alt

16/10/2024

Professor Della Porta is the winner of the 2024 "John D. McCarthy Award"
alt

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.
logo
Faculty of Political and Social Sciences Scuola Normale Superiore Palazzo Strozzi Piazza degli Strozzi 50123 Firenze Italy
logo