Lecture by Donatella della Porta

Abstract: The talk focuses on contentious politics in pandemic times defined as times of emergencies. More specifically, I will look at first evidence of the repertoire of contention—that is at non-institutional forms of participation addressing government policy—during and after the peaks of contagion in the COVID19 crisis in different regions in Italy. From the theoretical point of view, I will build upon social movement theories as well as on reflections on critical junctures. Using the conceptual and methodological toolkit of social movement studies, I will explore the various forms of mobilizations during and in the wake of the pandemic by looking at their organizational structures, repertoires of action and framing, with particular attention to the extent to and the way in which engagements in protests, the building of alternative knowledge and new forms of mutualism  are interconnected. In order to understand the characteristics of contentious politics in pandemic times, I will bridge the traditional explanations based on political opportunities as well as mobilizable resources, with the recently developed analysis of protests within political and social dynamics in situations of emergency.

Bio: Donatella della Porta is professor of political science, dean of the Faculty  of Political and Social Sciences  and Director of the PhD program in Political Science and Sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, where she also leads the Center on Social Movement Studies (Cosmos).
Among the main topics of her research: social movements, political violence, terrorism, corruption, the police and protest policing. She has directed a major ERC project Mobilizing for Democracy, on civil society participation in democratization processes in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. In 2011, she was the recipient of the Mattei Dogan Prize for distinguished achievements in the field of political sociology. She is Honorary Doctor of the universities of Lausanne, Bucharest, Goteborg, Jyvaskyla and the University of Peloponnese.

Discussant: Leo Lucassen

IISH Seminar: This lecture is part of the monthly IISH Seminar series. This seminar is open to the public, online only.