The Pisa Local Organising Committee

The local hosts work alongside the ECPR Events Team with the organisation of the Joint Sessions.

Heads of Project: Luciano Bardi (University of Pisa), Donatella Della Porta (Scuola Normale Superiore) and Yves Meny (Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna)

	Luciano Bardi (PhD, Johns Hopkins University) is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Pisa and co-director of the Observatory on Political Parties and Representation of the European University Institute’s Schuman Centre.  He has been visiting professor at numerous universities in Europe and North America. He is also the author of many publications on the subject of institutions , policies and democratic governance of the European Union , foreign policy , euroscepticism as well as political parties and party systems. He is the Editor of the Political Science book series of Pisa University Press. He was the local organiser of the 2007 ECPR General Conference in Pisa as well as member (2006-2012) and Chair (2009-2012) of the ECPR Executive Committee.
	Donatella Della Porta is Professor of Sociology at the European University Institute and of Political Science at the Scuola Normale Superiore, where she directs the Center on Social Movement Studies (Cosmos). Among the main topics of her research are social movements, political violence, terrorism, corruption, the police and protest policing. Between 2003 and 2007 she headed the project DEMOS (Democracy in Europe and the Mobilisation of the Society), funded by the European Union under the 6th Framework Programme. She currently directs a major ERC project Mobilizing for Democracy, on civil society participation in democratisation processes in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. Between 2008 and 2013 she has co-edited the European Political Science Review (ECPR-Cambridge University Press). Since 2015 she co-edits the European Journal of Sociology (Cambridge University Press). She is the author of 62 books, 99 journal articles and 83 contributions in edited volumes.
	Yves Meny, Emeritus President of the European University  (2002-09) is presently Chair of the Board at  Sant’Anna School for Advanced Studies in Pisa. His academic career includes positions in Rennes, Paris II, Sciences Po and the European University Institute. He has taught in many American and European Universities and is Honorary member of the Irish Academy.  He has published extensively in the field of French and comparative politics, public policies and administration. Latterly his publications have focused on corruption and populism. His more recent publications  deal with European  integration issues, in particular the democratic deficit question and the tension between EU economic/monetary policies and national welfare and democratic systems.

Local organising team: Francesco Strazzari and Serena Giusti (Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies), Lorenzo Mosca (Scuola Normale Superiore) and Eugenio Pizzimenti and Massimiliano Andretta (Univeristy of Pisa)

	Francesco Strazzari is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Pisa-based Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (2009 to date). He is also adjunct research professor at the Oslo-based NUPI (Norwegian Institute of International Affairs), where he joined the Consortium for Research on Terrorism and International Crime in 2013.  He specialises in conflict studies, with a specific focus on European security, state-building, extra-legal governance and transnational organised crime. He is author of a number of articles and essays on the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Black Sea, and the Middle East. He has recently edited a special issue of the journal African Security on conflict in the Sahara-Sahel region (forthcoming 2015).
	Serena Giusti is Assistant Professor at Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa and a Senior Associate Research Fellow for the Russia and the EU Eastern Neighbours Programme at the Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) in Milan. She has worked for the European Commission, Unicef-icdc and the OSCE. She holds a PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute in Florence and a an MA in European Studies from the College of Europe at Natolin (Warsaw). She has extensively published on the transformation of Central and Eastern European Countries, on the EU's enlargements and the ENP and on Russia's Foreign Policy.
	Lorenzo Mosca is Associate Professor at the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Scuola Normale Superiore. His research interests are focused on political communication, online politics, political participation and social movements. On these topics he has been involved in several national and European research projects such as Europub.Com - The Transformation of Political Mobilisation and Communication in European Public Spheres (FP5), Demos - Democracy in Europe and the Mobilization of Society (FP6), and Younex - Youth, unemployment, and exclusion in Europe (FP7). He currently coordinates the research unit based at the Roma Tre University in the project 'Comparing Social Media and Political Participation across EU' (http://webpoleu.altervista.org).
	Eugenio Pizzimenti is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Comparative Politics at the Department of Political Sciences, University of Pisa. He is a member of the Observatory on Political Parties and Representation of the European University Institute’s Schuman Centre, where he has been visiting fellow (2010-2013).  He has been a researcher at the Regional Institute for Economic Planning of Tuscany (2003-2006) and research fellow at the University of Bologna (2008-2010). His research interests focus on representative democracy, particularly party politics. He is author or co-author of publications in the field of political finance regime and party organisational change, in Italy and at EU level.
	Massimiliano Andretta is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Sciences of the University of Pisa, where he teaches Political Science and Political Communication. His research interests are mainly on social movement and political participation studies. He has been involved in several national and international research project and he is currently collaborating in a project on anti-austerity protest in Europe at the Schuman Centre, European University Institute. Among his recent publications are 'Power and arguments in global justice movement settings', in D. della Porta e D. Rucht (eds), Meeting Democracy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013;  (with Donatella della Porta) 'Dynamics of Individual Participation', in Journal of Civil Society, 10:4, 2014, and 'Il Movimento 5 Stelle in Toscana: un movimento post-subculturale?', in Roberto Biorcio (ed.),  Gli attivisti del Movimento a 5 Stelle: dal web al territorio, Milano, Franco Angeli, 2015.

Contact Details

For all enquiries regarding the Joint Sessions please contact Marcia Taylor at the ECPR office jointsessions@ecpr.eu +44(0)1206 630045.