Welcome and thanks for visiting my website.

I am Associate Professor of  International Relations at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Catania, where I serve as Chair of the MA program in Global Politics and Euromediterranean Relations (GLOPEM) and as Vice-Coordinator of the PhD Programme in Political Sciences.

I currently serve as Institutional Erasmus Coordinator of the University of Catania, member of the ECPR Executive Committee and Chair of the ECPR Working Group on Academic Freedom.

I am also the co-convenor of the BISA Working Group on Foreign Policy.

I have served as member of the ISA Governing Council (2019-2021), Secretary General of the Italian Political Science Association (SISP) (2018-2021), Chair of the ECPR Standing Group on International Relations (2019-2021) and President of the European Peace Research Association (EuPRA) (2017-2022). At the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Catania, I have served as Erasmus coordinator and Deputy Director for Internationalization and Research (2015-2021).

My research is focused on non-state actors’ influence on global politics, both positive (civil society movements and NGOs) and negative (organized crime groups and terrorists). On these topics, I have extensively published monographs, edited volumes, book chapters and journal articles (among others, on Global Crime, The European Union Review, Perspectives in European Politics and Society, European Foreign Affairs Review).

I am associate editor of the Journal of Contemporary European Studies and Chief Editor of International and Political Studies.

I lead the UNICT Team within the MORDOR project, an Erasmus + Cooperation Partnership for higher education K220 project on Mapping and Organizing Research on Dictatorships: Open access Repository.

I am also a member of the Management Committee of the COST CA21133 – Globalization, Illicit Trade, Sustainability and Security (GLITSS) and also lead the Working Group 2: Platform: the governance of illicit trade.

I am an ERCOR researcher, part of the Radicalisation Awareness Network Policy Support (RAN PS) European Research Community on Radicalization (ERCOR) Researchers’ Directory. ERCOR provides expertise and consultancy to support EU policy, at the disposal of the EU Commission and Member States.

I am co-editor of the Springer book series on Non-State Actors in International Relations, together with Marianna Charountaki. The first edited book, on Mapping Non-State Actors in International Relations has been recently published.

I teach International Relations and Global Civil Society at the University of Catania and Political Violence and Terrorism at the OSCE Academy, Bishkek. My teaching philosophy is based on the promotion of active learning and interactions. I have designed my own simulation model, Game of Peace, which has been awarded in a competition on European teaching practices that enhance learning for international students (IMPACT Project).

My course on Global Civil Society is also a MOOC offered within EUNICE, the European University for Customised Education, designed to solve social and economic challenges, both globally and locally.

I have also designed a totally free online distance learning course on International Relations addressed to students from all over the world. It consists of five thematic areas, includes built-in assessment tools, and successful completion will result in obtaining a certificate. Follow this link, enroll and feel free to contact me for assistance.

I regularly contribute to policy briefs, blog posts of expert networks, and to mass media on major international issues.

I am the co-editor (together with Hana Kubatova) of the Blog Series on Constraints to Academic Freedom, as part of the ECPR blog TheLoop.

I’m a multilingual and multicultural person. In my free time, I travel as much as possible, I play yoga and meditation, and I love learning foreign languages, reading, (my favorite novelist is Isabel Allende and I read her novels in Spanish) listening to music (I am a big U2 fan) and skiing.