Clandestine Political Violence

Donatella Della Porta is a professor of sociology at the European University Institute (EUI) and a professor of political science at the Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane. She was the 2011 recipient of the Mattei Dogan Prize for distinguished achievements in the field of political sociology. She has launched both the Consortium on Social Movement Studies at the EUI and the 'Mobilizing for Democracy' project with funding from the European Research Council. She is co-editor of European Political Science Review. Her previous publications with Cambridge University Press are Meeting Democracy (edited with Dieter Rucht, 2012), Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences (edited with Michael Keating, 2008) and Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State (1995).

'Della Porta, one of the foremost scholars of social movements, turns her attention in this new work to the question of why groups resort to terrorism, or what she terms clandestine political violence … this is a necessary addition to any academic collection on terrorism, political violence or social movements. Summing up: highly recommended.' A. G. Reiter, Choice

• 1. Political violence and social movements: an introduction; 2. Escalating policing; 3. Competitive escalation during protest cycles; 4. The activation of militant networks; 5. Organizational compartmentalization; 6. Action militarization; 7. Ideological encapsulation; 8. Militant enclosure; 9. Leaving clandestinity? Reversing mechanisms of engagement; 10. Clandestine political violence: some conclusions.