The Contentious Politics of Higher Education

This is a fascinating book which draws on rich, original data from England and Italy to explore the nature and impact of recent student mobilisations, and the differing responses to these protests by university leaders. In arguing that modes of university leadership and governance can have a significant impact on student politics, the book makes an important contribution to debates within both the sociology of education and political science, and takes forward our understanding of a relatively under-researched area of contemporary higher education. Rachel Brooks, Professor of Sociology, University of Surrey, UK This book makes a hugely important and very interesting contribution to the growing body of literature on contemporary student movements, not least by way of the perspective provided by looking at six universities across two different countries. It offers a rigorous analysis of very interesting and rich data, yielding numerous new insights for social movement scholars and genuinely moving debates forward. Anybody with an interest in this area will find much to engage with and chew over in Cini's text. Nick Crossley, Professor of Sociology, University of Manchester, UK Notwithstanding their relevance for contentious politics, the student movements have received only scant attention in social movement studies. And notwithstanding the dramatic impacts of neoliberal development for progressive politics, capitalism is still a silence in the field. Through a careful comparison of episodes of conflicts within universities in Italy and the UK, this volume convincingly contributes to filling these gaps, looking at the interactions of structure and agency in the policy field of higher education. Donatella della Porta, Dean of the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences and Director of COSMOS, Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence, Italy