Table Of ContentThe Mobilization Series on Social Movements, Protest, and Culture
RESISTING THE BACKLASH
STREET PROTEST IN ITALY
Donatella della Porta, Niccolò Bertuzzi,
Daniela Chironi, Chiara Milan, Martín Portos,
and Lorenzo Zamponi
Resisting the Backlash
Drawing upon interview material, together with extensive data from the authors’
original social movement database, this book examines the development of social
movements in resistance to perceived political “regression” and a growing right-wing
backlash. With a focus on Italy and the reaction to increasing inequalities and welfare
state retrenchment policies, it examines opposition to the government and state
authorities on a number of issues. Triangulating different types of data, it sheds light
on the ability of citizens to organise in the streets and addresses crucial matters in social
movement research, including the significance to political mobilization of grievances,
class, gender, and generational differences, as well as considering the network dynamics
of micro-mobilization, visions of Europe, and the role of interactions with major
political institutions. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and politics with
interests in social movements and political mobilization.
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.
The Mobilization Series on Social Movements, Protest,
and Culture
Series editor: Professor Hank Johnston
San Diego State University, USA
Published in conjunction with Mobilization: An International Quarterly, the
premier research journal in the field, this series publishes a broad range of re-
search in social movements, protest, and contentious politics. This is a growing
field of social science research that spans sociology and political science as well
as anthropology, geography, communications, and social psychology. Enjoying
a broad remit, the series welcome works on the following topics: social move-
ment networks; social movements in the global South; social movements, pro-
test, and culture; personalist politics, such as living environmentalism, guerrilla
gardens, anticonsumerist communities, anarchist-punk collectives; and emergent
repertoires of contention.
Nationalist Movements Explained
Comparisons from Canada, Belgium, Spain, and Switzerland
Maurice Pinard
Racialized Protest and the State
Resistance and Repression in a Divided America
Edited by Hank Johnston and Pamela Oliver
Power and Protest at an American University
No Confidence, No Fear
Edited by Ellen Carnaghan and Kathryn E. Kuhn
Exiled Activism
Political Mobilization in Egypt and England
David McKeever
Resisting the Backlash
Street Protest in Italy
Donatella della Porta, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi, Chiara Milan,
Martín Portos and Lorenzo Zamponi
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/
The-Mobilization-Series-on-Social-Movements-Protest-and-Culture/book-series/
ASHSER1345
Resisting the Backlash
Street Protest in Italy
Donatella della Porta,
Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi,
Chiara Milan, Martín Portos,
and Lorenzo Zamponi
First published 2022
by Routledge
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© 2022 Donatella della Porta, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi,
Chiara Milan, Martín Portos and Lorenzo Zamponi
The right of Donatella della Porta, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi,
Chiara Milan, Martín Portos, and Lorenzo Zamponi to be identified
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Della Porta, Donatella, 1956- author. | Bertuzzi, Niccolò,
author. | Chironi, Daniela, author. | Milan, Chiara, author. | Portos,
Martín, author. | Zamponi, Lorenzo, author.
Title: Resisting the backlash : street protest in Italy / Donatella della
Porta, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi, Chiara Milan, Martín
Portos and Lorenzo Zamponi.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. |
Series: The mobilization series on social movements, protest, and
culture | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021056629 (print) | LCCN 2021056630 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032180519 (hbk) | ISBN 9781032201672 (pbk) | ISBN
9781003262558 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Protest movements--Italy. | Social movements--Italy.
| Welfare state--Italy. | Italy--Social policy.
Classification: LCC HM883 .D44 2022 (print) | LCC HM883 (ebook) |
DDC 303.48/4--dc23/eng/20211230
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021056629
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021056630
ISBN: 978-1-032-18051-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-20167-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-26255-8 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003262558
Typeset in Times New Roman
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
Contents
List of Figures vi
List of Tables vii
Acknowledgement ix
1 Resisting the backlash in the streets: An introduction 1
2 Bringing grievances back in? Socio-economic
inequalities and the political participation of protesters 27
3 Generations and gender in the mobilisation against
the backlash 56
4 The dynamics of micro-mobilisation 79
5 Social movements and institutional politics 102
6 Politicising Europe in the streets 128
7 Conclusion 149
Index 166
Figures
2.1 Coefficient plots with 95% confidence intervals (models 3, 6, 9,
and 12, Table 2.2) 40
3.1 Involvement of protestors in organisations, Italy 65
5.1 Solutions against neoliberalism 116
6.1 Attitudes towards European integration (mean) of protesters
participating in our protest survey and of the sample of the
general population participating in the REScEU survey 134
6.2 Fear about the process of EU integration in protesters
participating in our protest survey and in the sample of the
general population participating in the REScEU survey 135
6.3 Blame for the crisis in protesters participating in our protest
survey and in the sample of the general population
participating in the REScEU survey 137
6.4 Satisfaction with policies carried out by EU institutions and
the Italian government among protesters participating in
our protest survey 139
6.5 Satisfaction with policies carried out by EU institutions and
the Italian government in protesters participating in our
protest survey, across changes in the Italian government 140
6.6 Fear about the process of European integration in protesters
participating in our protest survey, across generational
differences 141
6.7 Alternatives regarding the future of the EU, in protesters
participating in our protest survey, across levels of intensity
of participation 143
Tables
1.1 Sampled protest events 15
2.1 Descriptive statistics of variables related to political
participation, grievances, socio-demographics, political
attitudes, and social capital/ networks 35
2.2 Logit regressions (models 1–3) and OLS regressions
with robust standard errors (models 4–12). DV = electoral
turnout (models 1–3), levels of organisational membership
(models 4–6), levels of non-electoral political participation
(models 7–9), and intensity of protest (models 1–12) 38
3.1 Age of participants in demonstrations, Italy 63
3.2 Protesters’ frequency of participation, Italy 64
3.3 Influence of gender and age on protesters’ “frequency of
participation” 67
3.4 Protesters’ political orientation, Italy 68
3.5 Protesters’ agreement with the following statements 68
3.6 Importance assigned to different issues 72
4.1 Percentage of respondents who claim to be passive (financial
supporters, i.e. “giving money”) and active members
(voluntary commitment, i.e. “giving time”) of each type of
organisation or association 85
4.2 Crosstabulation of organisational membership by level of
commitment 86
4.3 Crosstabulation of form of protest event participation by
level of commitment 87
4.4 Crosstabulation of source of information of the events by
level of commitment 89
4.5 Descriptive statistics of variables related to motivations for
participating in the surveyed protest events 91
4.6 Ordinal probit regression model. DV: level of commitment
among Italian protesters (LC, MC, and HC) 94
5.1 Trust in political institutions and other actors (DEMOS—split
by type of event and frequency of protest—and CCC protest)
survey data 107
viii Tables
5.2 Satisfaction with the way that democracy works 109
5.3 Satisfaction with the Italian government in addressing
specific policy areas 111
5.4 Satisfaction with EU institutions in addressing specific
policy areas 112
5.5 Solutions against neoliberalism 117
5.6 Affective ties with different territorial levels 118
6.1 Political values of protesters participating in our protest
survey 133
6.2 Distribution across the distributive and cultural values of
protesters participating in our protest survey 133
6.3 Attitudes towards political integration in protesters
participating in our protest survey 134
Acknowledgement
This volume draws on materials collected under the framework of two
research projects hosted at the Center on Social Movement Studies
COSMOS, Scuola Normale Superiore [PI Donatella della Porta]: “Critical
Young Europeans” (CRY_OUT) and “Democracy in the EU and the
Potential of a European Society” (DEMOS), funded by the Ministero
dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca and Scuola Normale
Superiore. Based on the qualitative data of these projects, two special
issues have seen the light, namely “Europeanisation from below: Still time
for another Europe?” (European Journal of Cultural and Political
Sociology, 2020, Vol. 7, issue 3) and “Generations in Movements”
(American Behavioral Scientist, 2019, Vol. 63, issues 10-11). We are
grateful to our colleagues at the Scuola Normale Superiore for the
discussion throughout the years, and especially to Carlotta Caciagli and
Riccardo E. Chesta for their invaluable help in data collection and coding of
protest event data.
All six authors contributed equally to the volume and were involved in the
final drafting of every single chapter. In order to comply with Italian legislation,
we declare that Martín Portos wrote the first draft of chapter 2, Daniela
Chironi the first half of chapter 3, Chiara Milan the second half of chapter 3,
Niccolò Bertuzzi chapter 4, Donatella della Porta chapter 5 and Lorenzo
Zamponi chapter 6. As for chapter 1, della Porta drafted the “Theoretical
focus” section, Zamponi the “Prologue”, Bertuzzi and Milan “the context”,
Portos the “methodological design”, and Chironi “this volume”. In the
concluding chapter 7, Bertuzzi drafted the paragraph “some conclusions”,
Chironi and Zamponi “Resisting the political backlash in Italy”, della Porta
and Portos “The broad debate on the development of progressive milieus”, and
Milan “Avenues for further inquiry”.
