Felipe G. Santos

I am a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences, Babeş-Bolyai University , as part of the TakePart project, funded by the NextGenerationEU program. Additionally, I am Co-Principal Investigator of the READJUST Climate project, financed by the European Climate Foundation. I am also a board member of the Social Movements Research Network of the Council for European Studies. I earned my Ph.D. summa cum laude from Doctoral School of Political Science, Public Policy, and International Relations of Central European University, and have been recognized with the Young Scholar Award 2021 by the European Sociological Association, and the 2020 Outstanding Dissertation Award from Central European University.

I research why people participate in protests and social movement strategies to mobilize their members and impact public policies. Methodologically, I specialize in both quantitative and qualitative approaches, encompassing surveys, survey experiments, comparative analysis, interviewing, and ethnography. My research has been published in top international outlets including Perspectives on Politics, European Societies, International Affairs, Political Studies, Communication Methods and Measures, and Social Movement Studies. My work has been featured in major media outlets such as BBC World News, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, and El País.

Books

1. Social Movements that Care: Empathy, Solidarity, and Empowerment in the Fight Against Evictions. Forthcoming. London: Palgrave McMillan.

2. La Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca: 10 Años de Lucha por el Derecho a la Vivienda. Manresa: Bellaterra Editorial. (with Gabriele D'adda, Montserrat Emperador Badimon, Ezequiel Ramón Pinat, Eduard Sala Barceló and Luis Danmartín Cava).

Academic Papers

1. Policy over Protest: Experimental Evidence on the Drivers of Support for Movement Parties. Perspectives on Politics. Forthcoming. (with Dan Mercea).

2. Taking to the streets: Examining differences between potential protest participants, participants, and non-participants. Political Studies. Forthcoming. (with Dan Mercea and Matthias Hoffmann).

3. Protesting at the intersection of individual characteristics and obstacles to participation: An analysis of the in-person, online and pivoting styles. Journal of European Public Policy. 2024. (with Mathias Hoffmann and Dan Mercea).

4. Far-right strategies to co-opt progressive politics: Vox's Top-Down Civil Society Organizations in Spain. Social Movement Studies. 2024.

5. Protesting the lockdown: Geo-indexing a movement publicly opposing Covid-19 policies on Facebook. Social Movement Studies. 2024. (with Dan Mercea and Michael Saker)

6. Young democrats, critical citizens, and protest voters: Studying the profiles of movement party supporters. Acta Politica. (with Dan Mercea). 2024.

7. How Activists Build Power: Passive Beneficiary Involvement and Empowerment in the Platform of Those Affected by Mortgages. European Societies. 2024.

8. La configuración del campo de estudio de los movimientos sociales en España (1980-2020). Revista Española de Sociología. 2023. (with Gomer Betancor).

9. Lifting the veil on the use of big data news repositories: A documentation and critical discussion of a protest event analysis. Communication Methods and Measures. 2022. (with Matthias Hoffmann, Christina Neumayer and Dan Mercea.

10. Populist Strategy in the European Parliament: How the Anti-Gender Movement Sabotaged Deliberation about Sexual Health and Reproductive Rights. European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology. 2022. (with Dorit Geva).

11. Europe’s Far-Right Schools and Their Project for International Order. International Affairs. 2021. (with Dorit Geva)

12. Social Movements and the Politics of Care: Empathy, Solidarity and Eviction Blockades. Social Movement Studies. 2020.

Book Chapters

1. Methodological Pluralism in the Study of Political Participation. in Wagemann et al. (eds.) Protest and Democracy: How Movement Parties, Social Movements and Active Citizens are Reshaping Europe. London: Routledge. Forthcoming. (with Claudius Wagemann).

2. Care and Social Movements. in Snow, D. A., della Porta, D., McAdam, D., Klandermans, B. (eds.). The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements (2nd ed.). Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. 2022.

3. La transversalidad puesta en práctica: Cuidados e inteligencia colectiva en la PAH. in Betancor, G. and Razquin, A. (eds.). Diez años construyendo ciudadanía en movimiento(s). El 15M y otras luchas hermanas. Manresa: Bellaterra. 2022. (with Montserrat Emperador Badimon).

4. Cuidados y derecho a la vivienda: Cómo la PAH paró su primer desahucio. in Santos, F. G. et al. (eds.). La Plataforma de Afectados Por la Hipoteca: 10 años de Lucha por el Derecho a la Vivienda. Manresa: Bellaterra Editorial. 2022.

Media Appearances

1. Article on El Pais featuring my research on the top-down civil society organizations promoted by the Spanish far-right party Vox and how they fit into their "culture war" strategy.

2. Comments for El Pais about Spain's far-right party Vox's decision to join the Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament for a newspaper article published in El País.

3. Interview on elDiario's podcast Un tema al día on Europe's far-right support for Israel.

4. Interview on elDiario's podcast Un tema al día on Interview on ElDiario's podcast Un tema al día on why Spain's far-right party Vox did not have the breakthrough of its European partners in the last Spanish general elections.

5. Interview on La SER radio about anti-feminism and the Spanish far-right.

6. Article on InfoLibre referencing my research on the impact of ultra-conservative movements in the European Parliament.

7. Interview on La SER radio about the civil society organizations promoted by the Spanish far-right party Vox.

8. Interview on the Carne Cruda podcast on the origins and strategies of the anti-gender movement.

9. Interview on ElDiario's podcast Un tema al día on the anti-gender movement in Europe.

10. Hungary: election triumph for Viktor Orbán is a warning to progressive parties seeking a marriage of convenience with the far right. 2022. The Conversation. (with Dan Mercea).

11. Interview on Chatham House's podcast Undercurrents on the educational projects of Europe's far-right.

12. Comments for InfoLibre about the performance of Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) in the 2021 German Federal Election.

13. Comments for elDiario about the educational projects of Europe's far-right.

14. Article on InfoLibre featuring my research on the educational projects of Europe's far-right.

15. Interview on BBC World News on activism during the COVID-19 pandemic.

16. The global pandemic has spawned new forms of activism – and they’re flourishing. 2020. The Guardian. (with Erica Chenoweth, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Jeremy Pressman and Jay Ulfelder, J.

17. ¿Volveremos a las calles? Disposición a protestar durante la pandemia. 2020. El País. (with Olga Onuch).