Donatella della Porta

Donatella della Porta (born 1956, in Catania) is an Italian sociologist and political scientist. She is a professor of political science and political sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore. She has studied and worked in major social science institutions, all over the world. She is known for her research in the areas of social movements, corruption, political violence, police, and policies of public order. In 2022, she was named a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Since 2015, Della Porta is Full Professor of Sociology and the founding Dean of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore. Between 2003 and 2014, she had been Full Professor in political sociology at the European University Institute. Previously, she had 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 in 1981 a Diplôme d'Etudes Approfondies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales of Paris, under the supervision of Alain Touraine, and in 1987 a Ph.D. in political and social sciences at the European University Institute in Florence, under the supervision of Philippe C. Schmitter. During her postdoctoral studies at the European University Institute, she worked with the late Alessandro Pizzorno, until she moved to the Wissenschaftszentum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB Berlin Social Science Center), to participate, between 1988 and 1993, to the establishment of the department on "Social Movements and the Public Sphere". She obtained a Laurea in political science BA at the University of Catania.

della Porta directs COSMOS - Center on Social Movement Studies actually at the Scuola Normale Superiore, the DEMOS project (Democracy in Europe and the Mobilisation of the Society) founded by the European Commission. She also coordinated the Gruppo di Ricerca sull'azione collettiva in Europa (GRACE).

della Porta has conducted research also at Cornell University, Ithaca College, and at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung.

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 democratization processes in Europe (particularly, Italy, France, Germany and Spain), the Middle East, Asia and Latin America.

She has supervised hundreds PhD students in total at PhD programs of the University of Florence, the European University Institute, and the Scuola Normale Superiore, coming from different countries and working, among others, on topics such as but not limited to democratization, social movements, civil society, migration, peace, from fields such as but not limited to political sociology, political science, international relations, and political theory.

All along her life, Donatella Della Porta has engaged in institution building. Since 2015 and until 2021, she has been the Founding Dean of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore. Located in Florence, the Faculty now hosts two PhD programs, one on Political Science and Sociology (that she directs since 2015) and one in Transnational Governance, with a faculty of 15 members, about 60 PhD students and about 12 post-docs. At the SNS, she is also the Director of the Centre on Social Movement Studies (Cosmos), which she founded in 2012 at European University Institute and, since November 2015, moved at Scuola normale superiore in Florence. She has also been the founding co-editor of the major journal European Political Science Review.