Professor of Sociology
Tel. [+39] 055 4685 240/211
Fax [+39] 055 4685 201
Email: Donatella.DellaPorta@eui.eu
Secretary: Alessandra.Torre@eui.eu
Office: BF 265, Badia Fiesolana
EUI SPS Department
Via dei Roccettini 9
50014 San Domenico di Fiesole
Italy
Office Hours
For appointments please contact: Alessandra.Torre@eui.eu
Donatella Della Porta is professor of sociology in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute. She is on leave of absence from the University of Florence, where she was full professor of Political Science, president of the corso di laurea in Administrative Sciences, and Director of the Department of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Florence.
Professor Della Porta received a Diplôme d'Etudes Approfondies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales of Paris and a Ph.D in political and social sciences at the European University Institute in Florence.
She directs the DEMOS project (Democracy in Europe and the Mobilisation of the Society), financed under the VI FP by the EC. She coordinated the Gruppo di Ricerca sull'azione collettiva in Europa (GRACE) and has conducted research also at Cornell University , Ithaca N.Y. and at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung. In 1990 she received a Career Development Award of the H.F. Guggenheim Foundation and in 1997 a Stipendium of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung.
Her main research interests concern social movements, political violence, terrorism, corruption, police and policies of public order. On these issues she has conducted investigations in Italy, France, Germany and Spain.
She has directed a project of comparative research on control of public mass demonstrations in Europe and one on the police in Italy. She is currently involved in several comparative projects on citizenship and social movements. She is also coeditor of the European Political Science Review .
Professor Della Porta has been appointed to the Chair in Sociology, and joined the Department of Political and Social Sciences on 1 April 2003.
Social movements, political violence, terrorism, corruption, police and policies of public order. On these issues she has conducted investigations in Italy, France, Germany and Spain.
She has directed a project of comparative research on control of public mass demonstrations in Europe and one on the police in Italy.
Currently she is involved in several comparative projects on citizenships and social movements.
My main research interests concern social movements, political violence, terrorism, corruption, police and policies of public order. On these issues I have conducted investigations in Italy, France, Germany and Spain. I have directed a project of comparative research on control of public mass demonstrations in Europe and one on the police in Italy. Currently I am involved in several comparative projects on citizenships and social movements.
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January 2005 till now: Director of the comparative research project “Violent, Extremist, Terrorists Organizations” (VETO), analyzing the radical right in Italy, Germany and the United States.
START Consortium, University of Maryland. This project explores how societal and organizational conditions and political ideologies influence the normative systems of activists and organizations that use violence, and what aspects of these normative systems are most conducive for terrorist activities. This research assumes that individuals and organizations involved with violent repertoires embrace different conceptions and justifications of violence, and that these differences can be explained by environmental conditions (including national myths about violence, degree of democratization, societal cleavages; tradition of protest policing), organizational ideology (linked with identity, decision-making structure, size, national and international alliances) and individual normative systems.
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Director of GRACE - Gruppo di Ricerca sull'Azione Collettiva in Europa (Research Group on Collective Action in Europe).
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Since December 2003, member of the research project on “Democrazia discorsiva”, funded by Ministero per l'Università e la ricerca scientifica.
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Since January 2002, national partner of the cross-national project on
The Contentious Politics of Unemployment in Europe: Political Claim-Making, Policy Deliberation and Exclusion from the Labour Market , funded by the European Union. This project aims to advance knowledge in labour politics by focusing on the 'contentious politics of unemployment', i.e. the relationship between political institutional approaches to employment policy and political conflicts mobilized by collective actors over unemployment in the public domain. It is designed to study this topic at national, international comparative, and transnational levels. Key objectives: (a) to generate new data for longitudinal and comparative analyses of ideological and policy positions of actors and their relationships; (b) to study the potential for political participation 'from below' by citizens campaigning for the rights of the unemployed and the conditions under which existing organizational networks and policy dialogues transform in a more open civil policy deliberation; (c) to provide knowledge based on rigorous cross-national and EU-level transnational analyses allowing grounded empirical statements about the Europeanisation of the field.
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Since September 2001, national partner of the cross-national project on
The Transformation of Political Mobilisation and Communication in European Public Spheres , funded by the European Union. This project analyses the role of intermediary public spheres, and mass media and collective mobilisation in particular, in the process of European integration. It focuses on public spheres both as channels for citizen participation and the expression of citizenship identities, and as arenas in which EU policies and institutions can be held accountable and where their legitimacy is at stake. The project is proposed against the background of the increasing Europeanisation of governance structures, on the one hand, and the lagging behind of the development of an active European form of citizenship, on the other – a problematic often denoted as the EU's 'democratic deficit'. To study the Europeanisation of public spheres, we compare degrees and forms of Europeanisation of political mobilisation and communication along three dimensions:
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in seven countries: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Switzerland
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across six selected policy domains: monetary politics, agriculture, immigration, military troops deployment, pensions/retirement, and education. In addition to these topical areas, we study political debates and mobilisation that relate to the European integration process in general
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over time during the period 1980-2002. Our methodological approach combines the analysis of political claim-making and editorials in newspapers in our seven countries as well as on the European level with structured interviews with institutional representatives, civil society actors, and mass media professionals. In addition, the study pays special attention to the potential for transnational networks of political communication and mobilisation in the internet.
First year researchers 2011/2012
CINI Lorenzo (IT)
Deliberative Democracy in Theory and Practice. Making Participation and Deliberation Real.
KUEBLER Johanne (DE)
The Co-Evolution of Internet Activism and Governmental Response in Authoritarian Regimes.
KUTMANALIEV Joldon (KG)
Ethnic Violence and Peace in Southern Kyrgyzstan.
LEAL Hugo Joel (PT)
A Complexity Approach to the Emergence of Social Movements in the Middle East and North Africa Region: The Case of Egypt.
OIKONOMAKIS Leonidas (GR)
Social Movements and the State: Participating, Staying Aside, or Opposing? A Comparative Case-Study of the Bolivian Cocaleros, the Mexican Zapatistas, and the Nicaraguan Sandinistas.
ORAL Didem (TR)
From Contentious Politics in to Social Movements: Conscientious Objection in Turkey and Israel.
Second year researchers 2010/2011
ELEFTHERIADIS Konstantinos (GR)
Les mobilisations collectives de nouveaux mouvements de genre (féministes, homosexuels) en France, en Grèce et en Espagne: interactions, réseaux, acteurs
HALL Bogumila (PL)
Contentious Middle East: Dynamics of Bottom-up Contention in Non-Democratic Settings and Obstacles to Regime Change
LECOQUIERRE Marion (FR)
Le 'patto di mutuo soccorso': construire le conflit à apartir du territoire
O'CONNOR Francis Patrick (IL)
A Comparative Analysis of Framing Processes which Facilitate the Emergence of Political Violence. Ethnic and Religious Frames in Rwanda and Algeria
REINPRECHT Astrid (AT)
What News for Democracy? Shedding Light on Media and Democracy in Transition Countries
VOGIATZOGLOU Marcos (GR)
Precarious Workers' Unions in Greece and Spain: A Comparative Research on the Organisational Structures and their Movement Activity
WAGNER Benjamin (UK)
Participation, Integration and Co-optation: The Role of Participative Mechanisms in Shaping Authoritarian Governance in Tunisia and the MENA Region
Third year researchers 2009/2010
ATAK Kivanc (TR)
The Politico-Institutional Trajectory of Protest Policing: Post-1980 Turkey in Focus
DAVIS Donagh (IE)
Infiltrating History: Agency, Social Movement-Building and Systemic Crisis
DONKER Teije Hidde (NL)
Stability through Fragmentation: Islamic Social Movement Mobilization in Fragmented Middle East Regimes
HADJ-ABDOU Leila (AT)
Viennese Mosques, Austrian Headcarves and European Turks. Explaining the Politicization of 'Muslim Immigration'
HEMKER Robert (NL)
State Disintegration, Transnational Extra-Legal Activities and International Intervention: Towards a Political Analysis of Informality
WARKOTSCH Jana (DE)
Mobilization under Authoritarian Rule
ZAMPONI Lorenzo (IT)
Social Movements, Collective Memories and the Symbolic Construction of Conflict
Fourth year researchers 2008/2009
CERNISON, Matteo (IT)
Social Movement Organizations and the Web: An Online Trace of the Global Justice Movement
DOROT Roni (IL)
Political Revenge: Ethno-National Conflict and the Dynamics of State Retribution in Israel-Palestine (1948-2010)
JENSEN, Helge (NO)
European and Arabic Traditions of Deliberation in Resource Management – Mutual Learning for Transnational Networking of Grassroot Communities
Fifth year researchers 2007/2008
POLJAREVIC, Emin (SE)
Non-Violent Islamist Activism in Repressive States
ROBERTS, Catriona Marie Louise (UK)
The Role of Emotions in Social Movements
TESCIONE, Sara (IT)
The Transnational Dimension of Civic Activism in the Post-Communist Space