Resisting the Backlash

Donatella della Porta is Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences and Director of the Centre for Social Movements Studies at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy. Her recent books include How Social Movements Can Save Democracy: Democratic Innovations from Below; Social Movements: An Introduction; Discursive Turns and Critical Junctures: Debating Citizenship after the Charlie Hebdo Attacks; and Where Did the Revolution Go? Contentious Politics and the Quality of Democracy. Niccolò Bertuzzi is Postdoctoral Researcher in the School of International Studies at the University of Trento, Italy. Daniela Chironi is Research Fellow in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy. Chiara Milan is Research Fellow in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy. Martín Portos is CONEX-Plus Marie Curie Fellow in the Department of Social Sciences at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain. He is the author of Grievances and Public Protest: Political Mobilisation in Spain in the Age of Austerity. Lorenzo Zamponi is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy.

• Chapter 1: Resisting the backlash in the streets: An introductionChapter 2: Bringing grievances back in? Socio-economic inequalities and the political participation of protestersChapter 3: Generations and gender in the mobilisation against the backlashChapter 4: The Dynamics of micro-mobilisationChapter 5: Social movements and institutional politicsChapter 6: Politicising Europe in the streetsChapter 7: Conclusion

‘Drawing on a wealth of individual-level data collected over the years, this volume examines the determinants of participation in street protests for social justice and democracy in a period of political and cultural backlash. While focused on Italy, the book offers much broader insights into the dynamics of micro-mobilization in protest activities.’ - Marco Giugni, University of Geneva‘This truly insightful analysis tells us everything we might wish to know about contemporary left-wing protesters who are responding to a right-wing backlash in Italy. If you wish to gain a solid understanding of ‘who are those people in the streets?’ and why they protest, this book is for you.’ - Clare Saunders, University of Exeter