Donatella della Porta


Donatella della Porta is an Italian sociologist and political scientist, who is Professor of political science and political sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore. She is known for her research in the areas of social movements, corruption, political violence, police and policies of public order.

Biography

Full Professor of sociology and Dean of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore. Between 2003 and 2014 she has been Full Professor in political sociology at the European University Institute. Previously she has been 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. She has received a Diplôme d'Etudes Approfondies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales of Paris and a Ph.D in political and social sciences at the European University Institute in Florence.
She directs COSMOS - Center on Social Movement Studies actually at the Scuola Normale Superiore, the DEMOS project founded by the European Commission. She also coordinated the Gruppo di Ricerca sull'azione collettiva in Europa. She has conducted research also at Cornell University, Ithaca College, and at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung. In 1990 she received a Career Development Award of the H.F. Guggenheim Foundation; 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.

Publications