My current research interests revolve around three main themes: 1) patterns of state transformation in Europe, primarily through the process of European integration and, more broadly, the multi-level rescaling of state activities. 2) Technocracy, and the politics of expertise at the domestic and European levels. 3) More recently, the connections between (right-wing) populism and the past, via the threefold nexus of analogy, genealogy, and memory. Additionally, I am interested in EU-US comparisons, both as a tool for my own research and as a subject of methodological inquiry. Finally, I try to keep an (admittedly detached) eye on developments in International Relations, a field on which I have done research in the past.

Books and special issues
  • (With S. Couperus and L.P Rensmann) Populism and the Past – special issue of the Journal of Contemporary European Studies 31, 2 (2023).
  • (With S. Couperus and L.P Rensmann) The (far) right and the politics of memory – special issue of European Politics and Society. 24, 4 (2023).
  • (With L. Vai and N. Pirozzi) (eds.) Governing Europe: How to make the EU more efficient and democratic (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2017) (Publisher's page).

Articles
  • (With M. Griffini) "Abuses of the past by the Italian far right: A first assessment of the Meloni government" Journal of Contemporary European Studies. doi: 10.1080/14782804.2024.2390161 (Full text).
  • (With Y. Papadopoulos and N. Geyer) "Taking stock of the multilevel governance research programme: A systematic literature review" Regional & Federal Studies. doi: 0.1080/13597566.2024.2334470 (Full text).
  • (With M. Marchese) "Political violence in far-right memory: Fratelli d’Italia’s remembrance of the Primavalle arson" Contemporary European Politics 2, 1 (2024): e9 (Full text).
  • (With S. Couperus and L. Rensmann) "Historical legacies and the political mobilization of national nostalgia: Understanding populism's relation to the past" Journal of Contemporary European Studies 31, 2 (2023): 253-67 (Full text)
  • (With S. Couperus and L. Rensmann) "Memory politics of the far right in Europe" European Politics and Society 24, 4 (2023): 435-44 (Full text)
  • (With S. Couperus) "Differentiated cooperation through local authority networks: Challenges and opportunities" The International Spectator 57, 1 (2022): 54-71 (Full text)
  • (With P. Pansardi) "A more political Commission? Reassessing EC politicization through language" Journal of Common Market Studies 60, 4 (2022): 1047-68 (Full text) 
  • (With S. Tarlea) "The power of expertise: Gauging technocracy in EMU reform negotiations" Journal of European Public Policy 28, 12 (2021): 1950-72 (Full text)
  • "The politicisation of the European Central Bank: What is it, and how to study it?" Journal of Common Market Studies 58, 3 (2020): 501-13. (Full text) 
  • (With S. Couperus) "Right wing populism's (ab)use of the past in Italy and the Netherlands" Debats 4 (2019): 105-18. (Full text). 
  • (With P. Pansardi) "The charismatic leadership of the ECB presidency: A language-based analysis" European Journal of Political Research 58, 1 (2019): 96-116. (Full text)
  • "Clarifying multi-level governance", European Journal of Political Research 56, 2 (2017): 234-50. (Full text)
  • "Europeanization in time: Assessing the legacy of URBAN in a mid-size Italian city", European Planning Studies 24, 1 (2016): 96-115. (Full text) 
  • "Coming full circle: The Euro-crisis, integration theory and the future of the EU". The International Spectator 50, 2 (2015): 125-40. (Full text)
  • "The microfoundations of policy inertia: A city-level analysis of the CDBG”. State and Local Government Review 47, 1 (2015): 6-14. (Full text and supplementary table)
  • "The limits of normalization: Taking stock of the EU-US comparative literature". Journal of Common Market Studies 52, 6 (2014): 1342-57. (Full text and dataset)
  • “Federalism, the state and the city: Explaining ‘city welfare’ in the United States and the European Union”. Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 43, 4 (2013): 648-75. (Full text)
  • “La decostruzione di un conflitto: idee, percezioni e la fine della guerra fredda”. Quaderni di Scienza Politica, 17, 3 (2010): 555-74. (Full text)
  • "Cristianesimo e politica internazionale nel pensiero di Reinhold Niebuhr e Herbert Butterfield”. Teoria Politica 21, 3 (2005): 115-27. (Full text)
  • “La NATO e l'egemonia americana dopo la guerra fredda”. Teoria Politica 20, 1 (2004): 109-32. (Full text)
  • “La contrattazione tra alleati nella prospettiva neorealista: il caso degli Euromissili”. Quaderni di Scienza Politica 9, 3 (2002): 503-54. (Full text)

Chapters in edited volumes
  • (With S. Couperus) “Differentiation at the local level: An overview of sub-national authority networks in the EU.” In B. Leruth, S. Gänzle and J. Trondal (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Differentiation in the European Union. Abingdon: Routledge, 2022. (Full text)
  • “Technocracy and Depoliticization.” In E. Bertsou and D. Caramani (eds.), The Technocratic Challenge to Democracy. Abingdon: Routledge, 2020 (Full text).
  • “Subsidiarity and the European Crisis: A critical Analysis” (in Italian), in D. Ciaffi and F.M. Giordano (eds.), Storia, percorsi e politiche della sussidiarietà: le nuove prospettive in Italia e in Europa. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2020, 243-54 (Full text)
  • (With L. Vai) "What government for the European Union? Five themes for reflection and action" in L. Vai, P.D. Tortola and N. Pirozzi (eds.), Governing Europe: How to make the EU more efficient and democratic. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2017, 17-31 (Full text). 
  • (With N. Pirozzi) "Negotiating the European Union's dilemmas: Proposals on governing Europe" in L. Vai, P.D. Tortola and N. Pirozzi (eds.), Governing Europe: How to make the EU more efficient and democratic. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2017, 225-43 (Full text).
  • "La crisi e il futuro dell'Europa: una prospettiva teorica" in M. Belluati and P. Caraffini (a cura di), L'Unione europea tra istituzioni e opinione pubblica. Roma: Carocci, 2015, 111-22 (Full text).
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Editor reviewed articles and grey literature
  • "Knowledge and democracy" in E. Poli (ed.) Art and Politics - The Streets of Rome. Rome: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 21-26 (Full text).
  • (With S. Couperus) "Differentiation from below: Sub-national authority networks as a form of differentiated cooperation", EU IDEA Policy Paper no. 8, September 2020 (Full text).
  • (With M. Ferrera and M. Matsaganis) "Globalisation, economic inequality and political instability: What future for Europe's welfare?", Vision Europe Summit working paper, November 2017 (Full text).
  • (With M. Ferrera and M. Matsaganis) "Tackling the adverse effects of globalisation and integration: Ideas on a European Social Union", Carlo Alberto Notebooks 506/2017 (Full text).
  • "Europa differenziata: istruzioni per l'uso", Italianieuropei, 3 (2017): 68-75 (Full text)
  • (With N. Pirozzi and L. Vai) "Differentiated integration: A way forward for Europe", IAI working paper, March 2017 (Full text).
  • (With N. Pirozzi) "Negotiating the European Union's dilemmas: Proposals on governing Europe",  CSF-IAI working paper, September 2016 (Full text).
  • (With L. Vai) "What government for the European Union? Five themes for reflection and action", CSF-IAI working paper, September 2015 (Full text).
  • "Integration theory and the future of the European Union", CSF Research Paper, July 2014 (Full text).
  • "Urban regeneration in the EU: A comparative perspective". Perspectives on Europe, 44, 1 (2014): 85-88 (Full text).
  • "Why a partisan Commission president could be good for the EU: A response to Grabbe and Lehne", CSF Policy Paper no. 2, December 2013 (Full text).
  • “N=2: The comparative study of the EU and the US as a research programme”, Carlo Alberto Notebooks 290/2012 (Full text).
  • (With A. Locatelli) “Taking Waltz beyond Waltz: Socialization as an intervening variable in structural realism”, 2009 (Full text).

Projects in progress 
  • Technocracy over time: conceptual and normative aspects
  • Crisis and the politics of expertise
  • The politics and geography of European sub-national networks  
  • Populism and (ab)uses of the past

Reference work
  • G.T. Kurian et al. (eds.) The encyclopedia of political science (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2010). Entries: Constructivism; Correlation; First-Past-the-Post; Prisoner’s Dilemma; Process Tracing; Realism/Neorealism; Reinhold Niebuhr. (Full text). 

Book reviews
  • Earle, Job, Cahal Moran and Zach Ward-Perkins, The Econocracy: The Perils of Leaving Economics to the Experts (Manchester: Manchester UP, 2016) in Il Mulino, 01/09/2017. (Full text).   
  • Bickerton, Christopher J., Dermot Hodson and Uwe Puetter, The New Intergovernmentalism: States and Supranational Actors in the Post-Maastricht Era (Oxford: OUP, 2015) in EuVisions, 16/06/2016. (Full text)
  • Gerhards, Jürgen and Holger Lengfeld, European Citizenship and Social Integration in the European Union (London: Routledge, 2015). In EuVisions, 11/12/2015. (Full text)
  • Adamski, Janet, et al. (eds.), Old Europe, new security: Evolution for a complex world (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006). In Global Crime, 9, 3 (2008): 287-89. (Full text)
  • David Ost, The defeat of solidarity: Anger and politics in postcommunist Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2005). In Teoria Politica, 23, 2 (2007).
  • Catherine Fieschi, Fascism, populism and the French Fifth Republic: In the shadow of democracy (Manchester: Manchester UP, 2004). In Teoria Politica, 23, 2 (2007).
  • “Reading suggestions: The twenty years’ crisis by Edward H. Carr”, Crossroads: The ASA Journal, 5, 1 (2005): 78-81. (Full text)
  • “The two faces of international political economy”. Review of Robert Gilpin, Global political economy (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2001) and Jean-Marc F. Blanchard et al. (eds), Power and the purse: Economic statecraft, interdependence, and national security (London: Cass, 2000). In Teoria Politica 19, 2-3, (2003): 404-09.
Photograph: © 2013 Piero Tortola