Lorenzo Viviani

Lorenzo Viviani is Full Professor of Political Sociology at the Department of Political Science, University of Pisa, where he teaches Political Sociology, Sociology of Political Leadership, and Sociology of Democracy. He is a member of the PhD Board in Political Science at the University of Pisa and serves as Editor-in-Chief of SMP SocietàMutamentoPolitica, a journal ranked in Class A by ANVUR. He also holds several national and international academic responsibilities: he is Coordinator of the Political Sociology Section of the Italian Sociological Association (AIS), a member of the AIS Research Committee, and a member of the Scientific Council of the Inter-University Centre for Political Sociology (CIUSPO) at the University of Florence.

His research activity focuses on political sociology, with particular attention to political power, the transformations of democracy, political parties, processes of personalised political leadership, and populism. His work combines theoretical approaches, classical sociological perspectives—especially Max Weber’s scholarship—and empirical analyses with a comparative orientation. He has taken part in several PRIN projects funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research and has been involved in European research projects under evaluation. He is a member of the European project ImproCollBar (2022–2024). He is currently Principal Investigator of a PRA research project (University of Pisa, 2022–2024) dedicated to the transformations of democracy. He has also coordinated research projects commissioned by national institutions through competitive calls.

With regard to national and international scholarly engagement, since 2003 he has regularly participated in all conferences and workshops of the AIS Political Sociology Section, and he has contributed to numerous national and international conferences, workshops, and seminars, including ESA, ISA, IPSA, ECPR, and the HEPP network meetings on emotions, populism, and polarisation at the University of Helsinki. He is the promoter and organiser of the First International Conference of Political Sociology, held at the University of Bologna in October 2024, which brought together the main national, European, and international associations in the field. He is also a member of the Scientific Committee of the XXVIII Congreso de Sociología en Castilla-La Mancha.

His editorial activity is extensive and firmly established. In addition to directing SMP SocietàMutamentoPolitica, he serves on the editorial and scientific boards of several journals and book series, including Populism (Brill), Indiscipline, Sociologia Italiana – AIS Journal of Sociology, the series “Inequality: Disuguaglianze e Politiche Sociali” (Genova University Press), “Culture Politiche e Democrazia” (Castelvecchi), “Lessico Democratico” (Mondadori), the series of the Centre for the Study of Conflict and Participation (Carocci), and PaCo – Participation and Conflict. He also acts as referee for leading international journals.

He is actively involved in the main scientific associations of the discipline: a member of AIS since 2003, he is currently Coordinator of the Political Sociology Section (2023–2026). He is also a member of ESA (RN32 Political Sociology), ISA (RC18 Political Sociology; RC26 Sociotechnics), serving on the board of RC26 since 2018, and IPSA (RC Political Sociology). He sits on the Advisory Board of the ECPR Standing Group on Political Sociology. For the VQR 2020–2024, he is a member of the GEV for Area 14.

His publications—including monographs, articles in Italian and international journals, edited volumes, and book chapters—are available on the IRIS–ARPI platform of the University of Pisa.