Manuela Caiani

Manuela Caiani is an Associate Professor in Political Science at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, Italy, and a core member of the COSMOS research centre. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Florence (2006) and has held postdoctoral fellowships including a Marie Curie grant. Her academic rank qualifies her for full professorship in Political Science and Political Sociology (2017).

Her research focuses on social movements, Europeanization, far-right politics, online extremism, and qualitative methods. She coordinates the Master in Political Science and Sociology at SNS and leads the International Observatory on Social Cohesion and Inclusion (OCIS). She has directed major EU-funded projects like CIDAPE (Horizon 2023) and AUTHLIB (Horizon 2021), addressing democracy, climate action, and anti-authoritarian responses.

Recent publications explore transnational reactionary movements, anti-vax protests, and the cultural dimensions of populism through music. Her work appears in journals like Acta Politica, Mobilization, and Environmental Politics, alongside monographs with Oxford University Press and Palgrave.

Awards include the Marie Curie Fellowship and leadership roles in the Italian Political Science Association. She supervises 16 PhD students researching topics like radical-right identities, anti-gender movements, and populist music culture. Her labs and projects emphasize transnational dynamics, digital activism, and democratic resilience.