Search

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. This article analyses these initiatives as direct social actions: actions that do not primarily focus on claiming something from the state or other power holders, but instead on directly transforming some specific aspects of society by means of the very action itself. The article addresses the impact of the temporality of emergency on solidarity politics by employing a series of qualitative interviews and choosing to place the analysis of mutual aid initiatives that developed in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in longer pathways of engagement in direct social action. 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. Through this analysis, the article aims to contribute to the understanding of a crucial form of action and the influence of exceptional contexts on collective action.

This study explores how young activists in Italy responded to the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic using sixteen longitudinal qualitative interviews conducted in 2018 and 2020. Our fieldwork suggests that the Covid-19 crisis did not resonate with any significant shift in the trajectory of participation. At the same time, three major empirical observations with regard to time reappropriation, care practices, and digital activism were made, all of which worked in different ways according to the interviewees’ trajectories of participation. This research extends beyond the Covid-19 crisis and contributes to the literature on political participation by providing a way of investigating how activists respond to critical events in different ways depending on their trajectories of participation.

This contribution makes the case for a shift in boundaries between the (populist) radical right and the extreme right, arguing for the systematic use of the term ‘far right’. The significance of a deliberately generic but fundamentally meaningful concept such as ‘far right’ is motivated by the growing links between illiberal-democratic (‘radical right’) and anti-democratic (‘extreme right’) collective actors. This begs considering the conceptual grounds for differentiation among far-right collective actors, their underlying dynamics, and why it is important to look at what they do to tackle this phenomenon in practice—that is, to extrapolate their ideological essence and their varying allegiances to democracy. The complexity of far-right politics questions the long-standing conceptual distinctions internally defining it. The use of an umbrella concept may thus enhance precision in the discussion of this phenomenon, at the same time highlighting the unfolding of a new phase in nativist politics.

Il volume è stato immaginato per gli studenti dei corsi di laurea in comunicazione, per gli studiosi e gli operatori della comunicazione pubblica. Integra infatti riflessioni su comunicazione e decisioni pubbliche, democrazia e media digitali, ripercorrendo il dibattito sulla consultazione elettronica attraverso discipline e settori differenti. Il testo, a partire da una riflessione teorica sulla democrazia deliberativa, esamina in modo critico la risposta tecnologica al declino della partecipazione politica a livello internazionale. Presenta le tecniche di consultazione pubblica on line, gli standard minimi, possibili strumenti di pianificazione (metodologica e comunicativa), in una prospettiva che combina ciò che avviene sulla Rete con iniziative sul territorio. Una ricerca empirica compara le prime consultazioni pubbliche on line realizzate in Italia e in Gran Bretagna attraverso l’analisi di documenti, l’indagine secondaria di fonti statistiche ed una ricerca su un corpus di 2075 consultazioni britanniche e 56 progetti italiani di e-democracy, presentando alcuni casi studio. In questa nuova edizione, riflettendo su continuità e mutamento, si aggiorna il dibattito sulla democrazia digitale e le consultazioni pubbliche. The book is designed for communication degree students, scholars and public communication practitioners. It integrates reflections on communication and public decision-making, democracy and digital media, tracing the debate on electronic consultation through different disciplines and sectors. Starting from a theoretical reflection on deliberative democracy, the text critically examines the technological response to the decline of political participation at the international level. It presents online public consultation techniques, minimum standards, possible planning tools (methodological and communicative), in a perspective that combines what happens on the Net with initiatives on the ground. An empirical research compares the first online public consultations carried out in Italy and Great Britain through the analysis of documents, secondary investigation of statistical sources and a research on a corpus of 2075 British consultations and 56 Italian e-democracy projects, presenting some case studies. In this new edition, reflecting on continuity and change, the debate on digital democracy and public consultations is updated.

Il volume presenta i risultati di una ricerca esplorativa sulla socializzazione politica e i processi di costruzione identitaria delle seconde generazioni della comunità tamil di Palermo. Venti interviste biografiche (analizzate con il supporto del software T-LAB) ne ripercorrono le relazioni sociali in ambito familiare, scolastico, religioso, lavorativo, mediatico e associativo; i legami con lo Sri Lanka, con la comunità diasporica e con la città di Palermo. Tra gli intervistati e le intervistate, la lotta per mantenere viva la memoria collettiva e per il riconoscimento internazionale delle atrocità del passato, si intreccia con questioni politiche nuove che riguardano la cittadinanza e i diritti. Forme di socializzazione e partecipazione politica quotidiana coinvolgono vecchie e nuove generazioni, in un processo comunicativo e riflessivo continuo che mette in discussione lo status quo innovando pratiche e modelli consolidati di comportamento. This volume presents the results of an exploratory research on the political socialisation and identity construction processes of the second generation of the Tamil community in Palermo. Twenty biographical interviews (analysed with the support of T-LAB software) trace their social relations in the family, school, religious, work, media and associative spheres; their ties with Sri Lanka, with the diasporic community and with the city of Palermo. Among the interviewees, the struggle to keep the collective memory alive and for international recognition of past atrocities is intertwined with new political issues concerning citizenship and rights. Forms of socialisation and daily political participation involve old and new generations, in a continuous communicative and reflexive process that questions the status quo by innovating consolidated practices and models of behaviour.

About 45 years after the 1979 revolution which overthrew the last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Islamic Republic of Iran became a regional power, thanks to four decades of social, economic, diplomatic, and military advancements. But not all of these successes are clear-cut. Many of Iran’s achievements created new challenges or even led to political and diplomatic failures. Some episodes isolated Iran and made dialogue with the West difficult: the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, the military and financial support to Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon (Hezbollah), the adversarial relationship with Saudi Arabia, the anti-American, anti-Israeli, and anti-Semitic posture, and the controversial nuclear program, have alienated the sympathy of Western powers. The Islamic Republic has survived, despite sustained acute enmity from the US and Israel, a decade-long war against Iraq (1980-1988), and four decades of various forms of economic sanctions but, so far, was not able to come up with a governing model that reconciles the vision of a religious state with democracy. One of the last contemporary theocracies, along with Saudi Arabia and the Vatican, Iran should strive to introduce reforms, which are strongly demanded by the people: ease censorship, progress with human rights and respect for gender equality, restrict state intervention in the economy and pass electoral reforms. The harsh crack-down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on anti-government protests which have broken out since 2017 demanding reforms or the end to the Islamic Republic have raised public outrage. After the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018, and the civil unrest against the government associated with the death of Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the Guidance Patrol, Iran's image has further deteriorated. After 20 years, Iran is still perceived as President George W. Bush characterized it, jointly with North Korea and Iraq, in his State of the Union address of January 29, 2002: ‘an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world’. Economic sanctions, such as the embargo against crude oil, have injured the Iranian economy which suffers from double-digit unemployment and high inflation. Iran country would enormously benefit from their removal and the openness to the global market, in compliance with Art. 12 of the Constitution which sets the regime's goals: ‘A fair economy based on Islamic criteria to create welfare and eliminate poverty and deprivation in the areas of nutrition, housing, employment, health and insurance’. Is the Tehran leadership able to get the country out of this long-term situation and bring it into a new era of prosperity? This work aims to analyze the current situation in Iran and the opportunities for the country to find the right place within the international society., presented at the I. International Congress of Iranian Studies (Iranian Congress), June 15-18, 2023 https://iraniancongress.org/index.php/kongre/article/view/8. Abstract published in the Abstract Book https://iraniancongress.org/index.php/kongre/libraryFiles/downloadPublic/6

Over the last two decades, the concepts of defence and security have overlapped to the point where the former is merged with the latter. Since jihadist terrorism broke out at the dawn of the millennium, governments have been forced to review the classic paradigm according to which the military is employed in overseas operations—or the defence of the homeland from external enemies—and police and law enforcement agencies are tasked with internal security. In such a context, the military has taken on an increasing role in national security matters, although security itself is an umbrella concept under development that currently includes such cross-cutting topics as terrorism, cyber threats, health, food, energy, the economy, poverty, climate change, information technology, social security, job security, just to mention a few. The inclination to replace the idea of defence with security has contributed to the expansion of the idea of security itself. This way, defence activities abroad, such as military assistance to Ukraine in the context of the ongoing conflict with Russia, are presented to the public as "security" operations. Well-established and reputable dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster, Britannica, Collins, Oxford, Cambridge, Longman, and Macmillan provide similar definitions of the term "security": safety; safety from attack, harm, or damage; freedom from danger or threat; freedom from fear or anxiety; being safe and free from worry; being protected or safe from harm. Security is the protection from, or resilience against, the potential harm caused by others by restricting one's freedom to act. In addition to these definitions, some of which are more focused on the person and his concerns and fears, there is a more comprehensive idea that incorporates the term “defence”. The definitions given by several dictionaries in this respect are pertinent. Therefore, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, security is the "protection of a person, building, organization, or country against threats such as crime or attacks by foreign countries". A similar definition is provided by the Oxford Dictionary: "the safety of a state or organization against criminal activity such as terrorism, theft, or espionage". On the same line, Longman says: "things that are done to keep a person, building, or country safe from danger or crime". These definitions show how the nature of the concept of security is changing, incorporating that of defence into much broader domains than the military realm. The term "defence", is given as a synonym of "security" by the majority of these dictionaries (Merriam-Webster, Cambridge, Oxford, Collins), even though Britannica and Macmillan continue to be anchored to the dichotomy of defence/external and security/internal, respectively, by providing the words "national security" and "internal security", is evidence of this trend. The evolving concept of security must be scrutinised, with special attention paid to the notion of human security, boosted by UN General Assembly resolution 66/290 and the NATO Strategic Concept 2022, and currently under investigation by the Exploratory Team of the NATO Science and Technology Organization., Poster presented at the XII Portuguese Congress of Sociology, organised by the Portuguese Sociological Association (APS), the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra (FEUC), and the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra (CES-UC), held at FEUC, Portugal, 4-6 April 2023. More info in https://xii-congresso-aps.eventqualia.net/en/2023/home/ and https://eu-central-1.linodeobjects.com/evt4-media/documents/programa_de_comunicações_APS_21Mar.pdf. Abstract published at p. 277 in the Book of Abstracts available at https://eu-central-1.linodeobjects.com/evt4-media/documents/book-of-abstracts_5_2.pdf

Since there has been a considerable increase in studies on attitudes toward immigrants in recent years, particular attention must be devoted to the survey instruments used to measure them. Since they first appeared, both the European Values Study and the World Values Study have included a battery of questions to measure social distance, asking which social groups respondents would not be willing to have as neighbors. One of these social groups is ‘immigrants/foreign workers.’ The wording of this item contains a certain degree of ambiguity, as the terms ‘immigrants’ and ‘foreign workers’ refer to two different social groups. Foreign workers are in fact a subcategory of immigrants. Our contribution sets out to assess the working of the item, using a survey experiment randomly assigning respondents three different formulations (‘immigrants/foreign workers’, ‘immigrants,’ and ‘foreign workers’). The data come from the Italian joint edition of the European Values Study-World Values Survey 2017. The results show that Italians perceive a much larger distance toward immigrants than toward foreign workers, which is nevertheless similar to the distance perceived toward ‘immigrants/foreign workers.’ Overall, the empirical evidence suggests the semantic prevalence of the item ‘immigrants’ over ‘foreign workers’ in respondents’ answers. In light of the results, we will discuss their implications for both data users and future values surveys., Survey Research Methods, Vol. 17 No. 1 (2023)

The essay is part of a book that aims to rediscover and enhance Pierre Bourdieu's contribution to the legal philosophy. Clelia Bartoli's paper takes up the French sociologist's theory of the State outlined during courses held at the College de France in 1989/1990 and 1990/1992. Bourdieu eschewed an intellectual fashion of his time that pushed historians, political scientists, lawyers and sociologists to examine the causes and reasons, evolutions and epilogues of revolutions, at the expense, however, of what is happening on the background: the dull, muffled and repetitive order of things. Bourdieu believed that permanence more than change, what is obvious more than what is eccentric, the ordinary more than the extraordinary should astonish and deserve explanation. However, in the course of the lectures mentioned above, he suggests that in order to attempt the arduous task of thinking and understanding the State, it is necessary to look at the moment of its genesis or its phases of crisis, such as during revolutions. In fact, during those phases the symbolic power – of which the State is monopolist – is not stable and lends itself to being observed as the result of a process rather than in its pretended naturality and inevitability. The categories and the socio-epistemic approach à la Bourdieu are adopted by Bartoli to read the case of the Chilean uprising of 2019 and the onset of the constituent process.

Recent research exploring the relationships between gender and populism has shown that populist parties, mainly right-wing, usually do not advance a women-friendly agenda and do not provide women-favorable environments. Nevertheless, concerns about women’s rights and combating violence against women are gaining space within populist discourse. In this contribution, we analyze the tweets of populist female MPs in the Italian Parliament to explore their discourse on gender issues, paying particular attention to gender-based violence and the internal differences in the discourse of populist female MPs. The results show how right-wing female MPs promote a “right-wing” version of women’s rights, especially when dealing with gender-based violence. The results also point out the differences in populist discourse on gender and gender-based violence in different varieties of populism.

Not all governments survive until the next scheduled election. Some are replaced during their term in office by executives with a different party composition and/or portfolio distribution. Others are able to be ‘reborn’ as the successor government, undergoing only minimal changes. Such variation has to date received scant attention in studies on government durability. By classifying non-electoral replacements according to the degree of ministerial turnover, this article shows that new cabinets are often similar to their predecessors. It hypothesises that the likelihood of this pattern occurring is greater: when members of the current cabinet face bargaining problems in forming a very different cabinet, as in the case of surplus (unnecessary) parties in oversized coalitions; when the policy distance between the parliamentary median party and the current opposition widens; and when the executive’s economic performance discourages opposition parties from forming new coalitions with some incumbent parties. The risk of experiencing different types of replacement is estimated using data on Western European cabinets (1946–2021). Consistent with the hypotheses, the results indicate that governments are able to return to power almost untouched after their termination if they are oversized, if the opposition is far from the legislative median voter, and if inflation grows during a government’s tenure.

This study examines the relationship between populism, nationalism and religion through evidence from Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule. The literature on the populism’s rapport wit...

While transnationalism and mobility are sometimes used as synonyms, the two concepts have different focuses: on attachments within different countries in transnationalism and on multiple and open-ended moves in the mobility approach. In this chapter, we explore how the two concepts intersect with onward migration in the context of Brexit. The loss of rights linked to EU freedom of movement that is part of the Brexit process increases the orientations towards further migration while, at the same time, limiting the opportunities for further migration. We use in-depth interviews with EU27 citizens in the UK, UK citizens in Belgium and Bangladeshis who have naturalised in Italy before moving to the UK. We show how the completed onward migration to the UK of the Italo-Bangladeshis has weakened transnational activities in relation to Bangladesh, including periodic returns and remittances. We further show how transnational links delimit the mobility orientation of EU citizens ‘by birth’, by focusing on the plans for return migration, rather than onward migration within the EU. Given these results, we reflect on whether transnationalism and mobility theory are simply convergent or if they describe phenomena that might actually be in partial opposition.

This thesis is the product of my political and scholarly engagement with healthcare activism in Greece during the past decade and, more specifically, with the Social Clinics-Pharmacies’ movement that emerged in the country over the course of the most recent cycle of anti-austerity contention. The Social Clinics-Pharmacies’ movement was composed of grassroots clinics and/or pharmacies that provided free healthcare services and pharmaceuticals and engaged in protest tactics for reform in the Greek National Healthcare System. In just two years the movement became prominent and affected opportunities for itself. As such, and upon the closure of the cycle of contention and the rise of its ally-party SYRIZA into power in 2015, representatives of the movement were invited to participate in the drafting of healthcare reform around two of the most pressing and unresolved issues of the Greek National Healthcare System since its establishment in 1983. These pertained to the extension of coverage and the development of a comprehensive Primary Care level. I argue that this involvement of the movement into policymaking is an instance of movement institutionalization that reinforced convergence around tactics of healthcare provision from below as well as divergence in their strategic employment. By 2016 the movement had dissolved while individual clinics and/or pharmacies continued their operations. Departing from this case study, this thesis contributes to the existing social movement scholarship in at least three directions. First, it enriches analyses on repertoire innovation by providing a contextual and strategic perspective to the appropriation of tactics of healthcare provision by different actors. The expansion of Direct Social Action tactics (henceforth DSAs) has received attention over the past years and has been interpreted as reflecting a double deficit in democratic and welfare politics. I argue that healthcare DSAs compel us to study the configuration of strategies against fluctuating socio-economic and political environments and within particular institutional arrangements that advance as central for the domain of healthcare. In addition, this thesis advances the recent literature on DSAs by introducing a relational, dynamic and longitudinal perspective to their employment. This is achieved through the close investigation of healthcare DSA tactics from (i) the first instances of their utilisation after the establishment of the Greek National Healthcare System, (ii) their diffusion and modularization in the years following the 2010 crisis and the cycle of anti-austerity contention, as well as (iii) their solidification following movement institutionalization. Those three periods highlight the contextual and dynamic, interactive and strategic dimensions of the employment of healthcare DSAs. Last, this thesis embellishes accounts on movement institutionalization. More specifically the longitudinal investigation of the Social Clinics-Pharmacies allows us to approach institutionalization as at once a process and an outcome of the diffusion of healthcare DSAs in the Greek healthcare arena. As I hope to show the healthcare arena molded the profile of the movement as particularly institutionally oriented, and prone in assisting in and negotiating over progressive healthcare reform. This led to the swift institutionalisation of the movement at the peak of the Social Clinics-Pharmacies’ paradigm. Institutionalization, therefore, was a process composed of the various interactions between all those actors animating the Greek healthcare arena in the direction of repertoire innovation and healthcare reform. Institutionalization was also an outcome of collective action, with direct implications onto healthcare policy and indirect, unintended effects for the movement. Following movement institutionalisation, movement dissolution and the advent of reform, I observe the carving of different trajectories to and fro the same tactics of healthcare provision configured around the different interpretations of the reform and, relatedly, distinct strategic uses of healthcare DSAs.

It is a warm, austral spring Monday in the Capital of Chile. Metro stations are tingling with students and workers ready to encapsulate themselves in underground trains to commute as usual. The ticket fee has just been raised by 30 pesos. A group of young people decide to protest evading the fare. Placing their hands on the turnstile columns, one by one, they leap over the metal bar. This small gesture of disobedience spreads and intensifies with tremendous speed. On October 18, 2019, the government orders to close the entire Santiago subway. It is the day designated as the incipit of the estallido social, the Chilean social outbreak. This modest pretext is the fuse that set off a far-reaching revolt, so strong that it led the country to start a new constitutional process. Through an ethnography of the insurgence, Clelia Bartoli brings to light reasons, issues and forms of the Chilean awakening: the unfulfilled promises of post-dictatorship democracy; the perduring effects of the Chicago boys’ neoliberal experiment; the uprising of a protest without leaders and headquarter that disorients the harsh State repression; indigenous peoples’ cosmovision and struggle; the globalization of the Chilean feminist movement; the process of popular self-education induced by the uprising; the pitfalls of the constituted powers aimed to patronize and mitigate the constitutional urge claimed by the grassroots. The author, a direct witness to the events, recounts what unfolds before her eyes through a hybrid genre of writing: the narrative essay. Trying to penetrate the epistemic and emotional process that challenges the status quo and open up the possible, she tells and analyzes the scuffles in the streets and the inner turmoil of those who watch the wavering of known reality. Ultimately, this book is about that angry and happy, chaotic and generative time of crisis in a legal-political order. A chaotic and generative phase: promising as it is often disappointing.

Italy experienced the transition from a country of emigration to a country of immigration only in the last decade of the 20th century. The extreme heterogeneity of the Italian scene – from the distribution and variety of productive sectors and local economic dimensions, to the geographical, cultural and linguistic varieties – results in an incredibly differentiated background on which the phenomenon of migrations fits as multiplier of diversity. But there are some particular fields in Italy where the challenges of superdiversity appear to be more prominent: the impact on the school system, in terms of linguistic-cultural pluralism; the change in religious belonging and identities; the dynamics of cohesion/marginality in everyday life; and the relationship between spaces and identities in a superdiverse context. L’Italie n’a connu la transition de pays d’émigration à pays d’immigration que dans la dernière décennie du XXe siècle. L’extrême hétérogénéité de la scène italienne -de la distribution et de la variété des secteurs productifs et des dimensions économiques locales aux variétés géographiques, culturelles et linguistiques- se traduit par un contexte incroyablement différencié sur lequel le phénomène des migrations s’inscrit comme multiplicateur de diversité. Mais il y a des domaines particuliers en Italie où les défis de la super diversité semblent être plus importants: l’impact sur le système scolaire, en termes de pluralisme linguistique-culturel; le changement de l’appartenance et des identités religieuses; la dynamique de la cohésion/marginalité dans la vie quotidienne; et la relation entre les espaces et les identités dans un contexte de super diversité. Italia experimentó la transición de país de emigración a país de inmigración sólo en la última década del siglo XX. La extrema heterogeneidad del panorama italiano -desde la distribución y variedad de sectores productivos y dimensiones económicas locales, hasta las variedades geográficas, culturales y lingüísticas- da lugar a un fondo increíblemente diferenciado en el que encaja el fenómeno de las migraciones como multiplicador de la diversidad. Pero hay algunos ámbitos particulares en Italia en los que los retos de la superdiversidad parecen ser más destacados: el impacto en el sistema escolar, en términos de pluralismo lingüístico-cultural; el cambio en la pertenencia e identidades religiosas; la dinámica de cohesión/marginalidad en la vida cotidiana; y la relación entre espacios e identidades en un contexto superdiverso.

The Sardines “movement” emerged in the fall of 2019, giving itself mainly the purpose of countering the possible assertion of the right-wingers in the regional elections of 2020. The political disc...

This paper draws on a study of the life course of 40 young people (aged 18–35) in Bologna (Italy), who are active in eight different political organizations. It explores whether the political organization, given that the city’s political context is the same for all participants, affects the variation of their pathways. It does so by answering the following question: which phases in the lives of young participants are interconnected with the political organizations they are engaged in? To evaluate the impact of the organizational context on young participants, we will take into consideration three dimensions: the degree of bureaucratization, forms of action, and political orientation. Situated at the intersection of youth and social movement studies, this paper aims to advance our understanding of the connections between primary and political socialization processes in shaping young participants’ mobilization and sustained participation within different political organizations. Our empirical findings show that, if the degree of bureaucratization was constantly salient in the two phases, on the other hand political orientation was more salient during participants’ mobilization and the forms of action during participants’ sustained participation. In the conclusion, the paper critically discusses the empirical findings of our analysis of the respondents’ narratives.

Il capitolo s’interroga sull’attuale delicata fase di Cosa Nostra, con una prospettiva analitica diacronica e multiproblematica. Affiancando riflessivamente (Garfinkel 1967) l’iter degli studi e l’evoluzione del fenomeno, ripercorre sinteticamente le tappe più significative della storia di Cosa Nostra degli ultimi 30 anni; quando – dopo la feroce seconda guerra di mafia – la leadership di Salvatore Riina si afferma imponendo un nuovo modello organizzativo, una nuova strategia criminale, nuove alleanze con i “referenti esterni” e un nuovo stile identitario. Uno snodo critico è costituito dalle stragi del 1992-1994, che vedono Cosa Nostra alzare il tiro, sfidando le istituzioni statali in modo poco coerente con la sua tradizionale “vocazione criminale”. Misteri, depistaggi, “presenze esterne” non identificate, trattative e accordi segreti che costellano questi eventi, oltre a costituire un terreno su cui indagare pesano sul presente dell’organizzazione che non ha definito la sua partita con gli interlocutori istituzionali e che rivendica “promesse non mantenute”, potendo contare sulla sua solidità economica e sui gravi segreti di cui è depositaria. Basandosi su recenti indagini, su documenti investigativi e su studi scientifici, la parte conclusiva del capitolo evidenzia le difficoltà dell’organizzazione che accusa oggi una seria crisi di leadership (accentuata dalla morte di Riina il 17 novembre del 2017) che si riflette in una strategia di attesa in un quadro evolutivo dalle prospettive incerte. This chapter examines the delicate phase Cosa Nostra is currently undergoing, from a diachronic and multi-problematic analytical perspective. Comparing the development of research and the evolution of the phenomenon in question with a reflexive approach (Garfinkel 1967), it provides a concise overview of the most significant stages in the history of Cosa Nostra over the last 30 years. It thus begins after the merciless second mafia war, when Salvatore Riina imposed himself as leader and established a new organisational model, a new criminal strategy, new alliances with “external supports” and a new identity. A critical turning point came with the 1992-1994 massacres, which showed how Cosa Nostra had raised the stakes, challenging State institutions with little coherence compared to its traditional “criminal vocation”. Events studded with mysteries, inquiries thrown off track, unidentified “external presences”, negotiations and secret deals: all of this not only represents a field of inquiry but also weighs on the organisation’s current condition. With the “game” played with its “institutional contacts” yet to be defined, it now lays claim to “never-honoured promises”, well knowing that it can rely on its own economic solidity and on the vital secrets buried within itself. Based on recent inquiries, investigative documents and academic studies, the final part of this chapter highlights the difficulties faced by the organisation today. Indeed, it now suffers from a serious leadership crisis, has wound up with a strategy founded on waiting and must come to terms with its precarious evolutionary prospects.

The research explores the production of feminist spaces as safer spaces in urban contexts. How do feminist movements imagine, produce and preserve safer spaces? To search for an answer, I engaged with participatory action research (PAR) and constructivist grounded theory method (CGTM). In the cities of Rome and Madrid, that share general socio-economic, cultural and political features (Kantola and Lombardo 2017), feminist movements, as well, share similar frames, claims, and repertoires of actions. In each city, I selected three types of feminist spaces: women’s houses and/or spaces of equality (Casa Internazionale delle donne in Rome and Espacios de Igualdad in Madrid); longstanding feminist spaces which host a multiplicity of projects and direct social action (Lucha Y Siesta in Rome and Eskalera Karakola in Madrid); radical transfeminist, lesbian, and queer occupations (the space of Cagne Sciolte in Rome and Plataforma Encuentros Bolleros in Madrid). By searching for the meaning of safety, CGTM drove me to the work on affect and emotions that takes place within feminist spaces. Affects, as gradients of intensity and vital forces, work as 1) a channel of mediation between cognition and bodies; 2) a tool for political elaboration; 3) a competence in action. The confidence with inner feelings (that is usually considered unpolitical) makes people feel comfortable and at ease. People are not trapped in rituals of interaction and the performance of social encounters. Emotions can be manifested, elaborated on, transformed into action (Gould 2009). Affects do not enrich or empower political action, but they are the very matter of it (Massumi 2015). The capacity to name, negotiate and reverberate affects has transformative effects (Ahmed 2006), both at the individual and collective level. The work on collective affects allows feminist spaces to pursue their search for social change, with continuity (Taylor 1989, Whittier 1995), contention (McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly 2001), and innovation (Staggenborg 1989, 1995). In the empirical analysis, I engage with the concept of affects at three levels. At the macro level, by investigating how spaces relate with the structure of economic models and institutions, by performing alternative models and dealing with national, local and collective actors. At the meso level, by exploring the mobilisation of affects in collective action. At the micro level of actors, by looking at how individual mobilisation process and long-term political participation are bound up with affects. By drawing on affect theory, social movement studies and feminist theory, the research argues that the work on affect and emotions within feminist spaces has transformative effects, by increasing the potential for collective action.

This article advances understandings of collective remittances practices by elaborating on the case of the Armenian diaspora in the Netherlands. It argues that the collection, management, and distribution of collective remittances are crucial aspects of how diasporic immigrant groups function. Hence, collective remittances represent a lens through which to analyze a diaspora's internal life, gender differences and tensions, relations with the origin state or homeland, and connections to other relevant institutions. Furthermore, the article brings three new insights to diaspora studies. First, it demonstrates how practices connected to the collection and sending of collective remittances reflect the internal dynamics of diasporic migrations and diaspora-homeland relations. Second, the article unpacks the concept of collective remittances itself, classifying it into three categories: collective remittances initiated from above, with a state-driven character; collective remittances organized by transnational non-state institutions, such as religious institutions and pan-diasporic organizations; and collective remittances initiated from below, organized by migrants and local networks of diaspora members. Third, this article highlights women's roles in organizing alternative forms of collective remittances, from external to official channels. The qualitative examination of collective remittances presented here supplies a new vision of collective remittances in which informal and hidden aspects, gender roles, forms of reciprocation, and creation and circulation of trust are highlighted.

This article explores the attitude towards Europe of young activists in self-managed spaces in Italy, and the extent to which the crises the EU endured in the last decade shape their visions. Unlike pre-financial crisis social movements, in the second decade of the 2000s progressive social movements adopted radical Eurocritical attitudes and shifted towards Eurosceptic positions. The article indicates that young activists in Italian self-managed spaces mainly criticise the economic element of the European integration process and the functioning of the EU institutions. They still refer to the European sphere as the principal field of political intervention, but propose an alternative organisational model oriented by the principles of democratic confederalism and libertarian municipalism in which local, autonomous communities are horizontally connected. This article contributes to the study of Europeanisation and social movements literature by shedding light on a political alternative to the EU grounded on prefigurative practices and a self-managed society.