Societies do not unravel in a single moment. Across the longue durée of history, political and social orders are transformed through decisions, conflicts, and institutions that gradually make what once seemed unthinkable appear ordinary or normalised. My research investigates the historical and social processes through which power legitimises violence, repression becomes institutionalised, and people confront injustice, preserve memories of resistance, and struggle to build more just societies. Researching across comparative historical sociology, political sociology, cultural sociology, and sociological and political theory, I examine subjects and historical settings rarely studied together, including militant violence and terrorism, imperialism, anti-mafia resistance, authoritarian governance, criminalisation, collective resistance, and the politics of gender and sexuality. Drawing on archival research, historical comparison, ethnographic research, and personal testimonies, I seek to understand not only the forces that sustain domination/authority across generations but also those that challenge it. At the centre of my scholarship lies a concern with who defines legitimate authority, whose dignity is recognised, and the circumstances under which collective resistance can transform social and political life.

​​

My research is global and comparative in scope, examining why violence and repression produce different social, political, and cultural consequences across societies, historical periods, and political orders. Some conflicts consolidate existing structures of authority, while others generate new solidarities and possibilities for socio-political change. Often, these processes unfold simultaneously. I trace their consequences through institutions, collective memory, and the political struggles of successive generations. Power seldom remains unchanged when confronted with collective resistance. It adapts, absorbs challenges, and finds new justifications for established hierarchies. Yet those subjected to coercion and injustice also shape the course of history, preserving knowledge of earlier struggles, forging solidarities, and challenging the boundaries of social and political possibility. My comparative approach seeks to explain why certain forms of domination/authortitarianism endure while others are contested and transformed, and what these divergent trajectories reveal about the conditions under which collective action can reshape political and social life.

​

Books

I am the author of four books:

 

The Autocrat's Playbook: How Authoritarians Weaponize Morality to Destroy Societies

(University of California Press, March 2027) shows how autocrats weaponise morality to justify repression, from Nazi Germany to contemporary Turkey, the United States, European countries, Iran, and Russia.

​

Queer Under Siege: How Global Repression Works and How We Resist

(Temple University Press, June 2027) traces how authoritarian and democratic regimes alike systematically criminalise and persecute queer lives, and how queer individuals and communities have fought back across contexts of global repression.

 

A Slow Revolution: The Betrayal of Sicilians and Their War on the Mafia

(Cornell University Press, February 2027) draws on over a decade of archival and fieldwork in Sicily to explain why some struggles for justice endure for centuries.

Violence and Militants: From Ottoman Rebellions to Jihadist Organizations

(McGill–Queen's University Press, 2019) draws on extensive archival research and examines how militants rationalise and apply violence across centuries, diverse social and politial geographies.

​

Methodological Approach

My research develops analytical concepts that connect historical rupture, moral discourse, institutional power, and lived experience by providing a foundation for systematic comparison across regions, political regimes, and historical periods. I work primarily within comparative historical sociology, combining long-term ethnographic research, archival inquiry, in-depth interviewing, and computer-assisted qualitative analysis. I use these methods comparatively and iteratively, triangulating evidence across different source types while tracing temporal sequences, institutional transformations, and the social mechanisms through which social and political orders are sustained or challenged. This methodological approach enables me to move between macro-historical processes and situated experience, examining how violence and injustice are produced, legitimised, institutionalised, and contested. Across my research, I am particularly interested in how people interpret and navigate coercive social formations, how social, moral, and political boundaries are constructed, and how collective action can generate new claims to dignity, recognition, and justice.

​

Research Leadership, Awards, and Funding

I have secured approximately £2.9 million in competitive research funding from the British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, AHRC, the European Council, and the Max Planck Institute, as Principal or Co-Principal Investigator. Alongside my research, I am Editor-in-Chief of the International Social Science Journal (UNESCO/Wiley), and Editor of original article submissions for Sociology Compass. I founded the Temple Studies in Criminalization, History, and Society book series at Temple University Press. I am an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of History. In 2026, I received the Sakıp Sabancı International Research Award.

​

Public Scholarship & Affiliations

Trained in Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Turkey and the United States, I bring a strongly international perspective to questions of power, resistance, and collective identity. My research contributes to social and political theory as well as comparative historical sociology by linking local histories to global structures of power, control, and conflict. I regularly contribute to major media outlets on contemporary political and social issues, translating academic research for public audiences. For more information, please visit the Media/Public Scholarship page of this website.

 

I have held visiting positions at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, the University of Palermo, the University of Oxford, and Rutgers University. I am a Senior Research Affiliate with the Canadian Network for Terrorism, Security, and Society and the Royal United Services Institute.

 

Commitment to LGBTQI+ Scholars

As a gay man, I am aware of the importance of visibility and institutional support. I am committed to supporting LGBTQI+ scholars in academia. I provide voluntary mentorship to PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers from the queer community and collaborate with the ISA’s LGBTQA Caucus to build structured support for early-career scholars.​