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Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies

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Publications

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Communication creates partial organization: A comparative analysis of the organizing practices of two climate action movements, Youth for Climate and Fridays for Future Italy

Journal Article - 2025

Author: Marco Deseriis, Lorenzo Zamponi, Diego Ceccobelli

ABSTRACT: This article focuses on a neglected aspect of the climate action movement Fridays for Future, namely, the relationship between its mediated communication practices and its early organizational processes. Drawing from a strand of organizational communication that underscores the constitutive dimension of communication to organizing processes, we analyze the significance of mediatized leadership and networked… more

Movement party as a framing strategy: comparing left-wing and right-wing actors in Serbia

Journal Article - 2024

Author: Karlo Kralj, Ivan Tranfić

Researchers typically define movement parties as political parties that attempt to innovate party-political organizing through social movements’ action repertoire. Apart from being analyzed as a specific type of political party, movement parties can also be analyzed as a type of framing strategy that actors use to enhance electoral mobilization. Although this kind of analysis has… more

Politics in Flux: Continuities and Transformations in Processes of Collective Action

Journal Article - 2024

Author: Lorenzo Bosi, Stefan Malthaner

Phenomena of collective action – of collective political conflict1 – are neither uniform nor stable. They comprise institutional and non-institution- al actors as well as routine, confrontational, or even violent forms of action. They take place in different arenas, change over time and involve individu- als in different ways, roles, and trajectories. This variance and… more
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Radical right and anti-vax protest between movements and parties: a comparative study

Journal Article - 2024

Author: Manuela Caiani, Pal Susanszky, Nikos Saridakis

Mobilisations opposed to vaccinations and other Covid-19-related measures have dominated the protest arena in the recent years of the pandemic. Radical right collective actors, whether newly emerging or revitalised, have successfully shaped public discourses and gained significant roles on the streets and in party politics. This paper analyses the radical right (RR) mobilisation that takes… more
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Redefining internationalism: the German left’s silence on Palestine and feminist critiques

Journal Article - 2024

Author: Franca Marquardt

This article critically examines the complexities of internationalism within German radical Left movements, especially in the face of war, humanitarian crises, and the global reach of late-stage capitalism. Germany’s failed response to the Genocide in Gaza and its carceral turn is shaped by the State’s approach to national memory, which is deeply rooted in its… more

Repertoires of action and collective memory: the re-emergence of feminist self-managed health centers in Italy

Journal Article - 2024

Author: Anastasia Barone

This article analyzes the relationship between repertoires of action and collective memory by exploring the re-emergence of feminist self-managed health centers in Italy. These were a key form of action of 1970s feminism in the country, which rapidly disappeared after the institution of state-based Family Health Centers. In the last decades, feminist and transfeminist self-managed… more

Visual Analysis and the Contentious Politics of the Radical RightVisual Analysis and the Contentious Politics of the Radical Right

Journal Article - 2024

Author: Manuela Caiani

Although images are very important for political actors and social movements, including the radical right (RR), empirical studies still rarely integrate visual material as relevant data for understanding radical right politics. This article outlines this new and growing field of research (i.e., visuality and the RR), critically reviewing existing studies from the perspective of both… more

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

Journal Article - 2023

Author: Batuhan Eren

Conditional environmentalism of right-wing populism in power: ideology and/or opportunities?

Journal Article - 2023

Author: Manuela Caiani, Balša Lubarda

This study focuses on right-wing populists (RWP) in power and their discourses and policy preferences on environmental issues. Through a content and frame analysis of electoral manifestos, party communication and semi-structured, in-depth interviews with party representatives, this paper examines whether ideological or contextual factors (political opportunities) determine RWP positioning on the environment. By focusing on… more
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Conditional environmentalism of right-wing populism in power: ideology and/or opportunities?

Journal Article - 2023

Author: Manuela Caiani, Balša Lubarda

This study focuses on right-wing populists (RWP) in power and their discourses and policy preferences on environmental issues. Through a content and frame analysis of electoral manifestos, party communication and semi-structured, in-depth interviews with party representatives, this paper examines whether ideological or contextual factors (political opportunities) determine RWP positioning on the environment. By focusing on… more

News

24/04/2025

Reclaiming narrative: understanding Palestinian politics with Palestinian voices
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11/04/2025

Politics of Exclusion: Repressing Protests on US Campus
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08/04/2025

Protest politics and democratic struggle: Greece
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07/04/2025

Break free. La migrazione oltre il carcere e la repressione
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31/03/2025

Education as a form of democratic resistance: the FIERCE co-creation labs and the Manual for self-defense 
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28/03/2025

From the struggle for housing to touristification: housing and movements, yesterday and today
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Publications

Journal Article - 2025

Communication creates partial organization: A comparative analysis of the organizing practices of two climate action movements, Youth for Climate and Fridays for Future Italy
Marco Deseriis, Lorenzo Zamponi, Diego Ceccobelli
This article focuses on a neglected aspect of the climate action movement Fridays for Future, namely, the relationship between its mediated communication practices and its early organizational processes. Drawing from a strand of organizational communication that underscores the constitutive dimension of communication to organizing processes, we analyze the significance of mediatized leadership and networked communication for the foundation and early development of two national chapters of Fridays for Future: Youth for Climate (YFC) Belgium and Fridays for Future Italy (FFFI).

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.

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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