Professor of sociology in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute. She is on leave of absence from the University of Florence, where she was full professor of Political Science, president of the corso di laurea in Administrative Sciences, and Director of the Department of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Florence. She has received a Diplome d'Etudes Approfondies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales of Paris and a Ph.D in political and social sciences at the European University Institute in Florence. She directs the DEMOS project (Democracy in Europe and the Mobilization of the Society), financed under the VI FP by the EC. She also coordinated the Gruppo di Ricerca sull'azione collettiva in Europa (GRACE). She has conducted research also at Cornell University, Ithaca N.Y, and at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin for Sozialforschung. In 1990 she received a Career Development Award of the H.F. Guggenheim Foundation; in 1997 a Stipendium of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung. Her main research interests concern social movements, political violence, terrorism, corruption, police and policies of public order. On these issues she has conducted investigations in Italy, France, Germany and Spain. She has directed a project of comparative research on control of public mass demonstrations in Europe and one on the police in Italy. Currently she is involved in several comparative projects on citizenship and social movements.