Cosmos
The Centre on Social Movement Studies
Journal Article - 2020
Author: Andrea Pirro & Donatella della Porta
The article draws on social movement theory to understand collective action against corruption in Hungary. While offering a perspective on anti-corruption activism, the article demonstrates its limits against a set of unfavourable factors. Our enquiry reveals that the political context in which anti-corruption activism develops, that is, Hungary under Viktor Orbán, critically affects its mobilising… moreJournal Article - 2020
Author: Lorenzo Bosi, Lorenzo Zamponi
Heterogeneous collective actors often select the same form of action, but there is no academic investigation into how and when this happens. This article does so focusing on direct social action, that is, a form of collective action that does not primarily focus upon claiming something from the state but instead focuses upon directly transforming… moreJournal Article - 2020
Author: Pietro Castelli Gattinara, Lorenzo Zamponi
This article focuses on the migration policy crisis in France to illustrate how social movements contribute to the epistemic construction of ‘crises’ of European Integration. To tackle politicization, we compare the framing and mobilization choices by grassroots actors in solidarity with asylum-seekers and groups aiming to defend national borders from them. Using original Protest Event… moreJournal Article - 2020
Author: Manuela Caiani & Enrico Padoan
This article, focusing on Italy, aims to broaden our understanding of the recent striking electoral fortunes of (differing types of) populism in the country, by locating them within multiple crises (political, economic, migration) that have shocked Europe in the last two decades. By combining individual-level survey data on voters with organizational-level interviews conducted with national… moreJournal Article - 2020
Author: Marco Deseriis
This article advances a new theory of the digital democratic affordance, a concept first introduced by Lincoln Dahlberg to devise a taxonomy of the democratic capacities of digital media applications. Whereas Dahlberg classifies digital media affordances on the basis of preexisting democratic positions, the article argues that the primary affordance of digital media is to… moreJournal Article - 2020
Author: Ofra Klein & Andrea Pirro
The article focuses on the transformation of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) after the 2016 Brexit referendum. It describes how, after securing its chief political demand, UKIP opened up to grassroots far-right politics and assesses whether this strategy involved a concomitant shift towards a more radical discourse. Against a backdrop of organisational change, the findings… moreJournal Article - 2020
Author: Raffaele Bazurli, Francesca Campomori & Mattia Casula
Immigration and asylum became tremendously contested in Italy over the last decade. Especially since 2017, left-leaning executives eroded asylum rights for the sake of competing with their right-wing opponents. The climax was then reached in 2018, when Matteo Salvini – leader of the far-right Lega party and newly appointed Minister of the Interior – authored… moreJournal Article - 2020
Author: Veronica Barassi, Lorenzo Zamponi
The question of identity narrative is at the core of the interaction between social movements and temporalities. In this paper, we draw on long-term qualitative research amongst activists engaged in Italian social movements and argue that identity narratives are often the result of a complex mnemonic, contradictory and open-ended process that spans through a life-time… moreMonograph - 2020
Author: Donatella della Porta, Mario Diani
Journal Article - 2020
Author: Andrea Felicetti
Resilient socioeconomic unsustainability poses a threat to democracy whose importance has yet to be fully acknowledged. As the prospect of sustainability transition wanes, so does perceived legitimacy of institutions. This further limits representative institutions’ ability to take action, making democratic deepening all the more urgent. I investigate this argument through an illustrative case study, the… moreJournal Article - 2026
Journal Article - 2026
Journal Article - 2026
Edited Volume - 2026
Journal Article - 2026
Journal Article - 2026
Monograph - 2025
Journal Article - 2025
Journal Article - 2025
