Objective This research project examines how political violence unfolds, develops and demises by combining knowledge coming from three major disciplines: history, political science and sociology. Analytically, it explores how the complex interactions between the social, political, and cultural environment and the internal dynamics within social movements affect cycles of political violence. At the empirical level, it systematically examines two distinct cases of political violence: the ‘socio-revolutionary’ of the Red Brigades in Italy from the mid 1960s to the late 1980s and the ‘ethno-nationalist’ of the Provisional Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland from the mid 1960s to the late 1990s. Importantly, it also expands the source base for the study of political violence by presenting and analysing a series of new interviews with former armed militants. Set within this framework and drawing on theoretical approaches from the literature on social movements and contentious politics, this research project searches for common mechanisms and processes that conditioned the cycles of political violence in Italy and Northern Ireland. The proposed research will help to develop adequate tools not only for explanatory and theoretical purposes, but also in order to formulate alternative strategies of conflict resolution and provide valuable opportunities for policy learning. During the MC fellowship I plan to complete a monograph to be submitted to a university press, a series of 4 articles for academic journals and to build a European research cluster working on political violence and terrorism. Pursuing my project at the EUI, where I can get additional training in my fields of interest, will greatly enhance the quality of my research and career prospects. At the end of the MC fellowship, I will be positioned in a far better place to compete for a tenured position at a leading European research university and thus to contribute to European scholarship. Fields of science social scienceslawhuman rightshuman rights violationspolitical violencesocial sciencessociologysocial sciencespolitical sciencespolitical transitionsterrorismhumanitieshistory and archaeologyhistorysocial sciencespolitical sciencespolitical transitionsrevolutions Keywords Contentious and Comparative Politics Humanities Political Sociology Political Violence and Terrorism studies Social Movement Social sciences Programme(s) FP7-PEOPLE - Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013) Topic(s) FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008 - Marie Curie Action: "Intra-European Fellowships for Career Development" Call for proposal FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF) Coordinator EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE EU contribution € 141 337,53 Address VIA DEI ROCCETTINI 9 50014 Fiesole Italy See on map Region Centro (IT) Toscana Firenze Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Administrative Contact Serena Scarselli (Mrs.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Total cost No data
