This track focuses on the role of social movements, contentious politics, and political participation in addressing some of the most pressing challenges confronting Europe today. In a context shaped by ecological crisis, war and militarization, democratic backsliding, authoritarian drift, and the rise of far-right politics, the study of social movements is essential for understanding how political conflict is articulated, how collective actors respond to exclusion and insecurity, and how democratic claims are advanced, transformed, or suppressed.
Particular attention is devoted to the ways in which contemporary movements engage with the shifting European terrain: from green transition to war economy, from democratic erosion to authoritarian governance, and from neoliberal restructuring to the transnational circulation of radical-right ideas, organizations, and repertoires. At the same time, the track welcomes contributions that situate these dynamics in broader global processes or examine similar developments in other parts of the world. Social movements thus provide a crucial vantage point for analysing the reconfiguration of participation, citizenship, power, and resistance across Europe and beyond.
The track welcomes contributions on environmental and climate mobilizations, anti-war and peace activism, labour and anti-precarity struggles, feminist and anti-racist movements, migrant solidarity initiatives, grassroots legal mobilization, democratic innovation, and mobilizations against authoritarianism and illiberal politics. It also encourages research on the far right as a movement field, including parties, networks, leadership, and transnational mobilization.
By bringing social movement studies into dialogue with comparative politics, European politics, international politics, political sociology, and democratic theory, this track highlights the analytical and political importance of studying collective action in order to grasp the transformations of contemporary politics in Europe and beyond.
- Democratic Resistance from Below: Social Movements against Backlash and Backsliding
Chair: Dr. Daniela Chironi - Democratizing Europe From Below? Social Movements, Everyday Democratic Practices, and Transnational Political Change
Chair: Prof. Guya Accornero - From Green Transition to War Economy: Social Movements in an Age of Militarization
Chair: Dr. Federica Frazzetta - Organizing Workers across Differences: Labour Conflict, Intersectionality, and Social Movement Unionism
Chair: Prof. Massimiliano Andretta - The Far Right as a Social Movement: Conceptualizing Parties, Networks, Leadership and Transnational Mobilization
Chair: Dr. Manuela Caiani - Tourism as a Prompt for Democracy (again!): Grassroots Movements against Overtourism and Sustainable Models for the Right to Travel
