My research is driven by a central question: how does power break societies apart, and how does resistance aim to remake them? My research spans militant violence, anti-mafia resistance, terrorism, autocratic governance, criminalisation, marginalisation, and the politics of gender and sexuality, but it always returns to the same core concern. How do political and social orders legitimise violence, suppress resistance, and shape the pursuit of dignity in the aftermath of injustice? Working across the longue durée and across regions, from Europe and the Middle East to North America, I bring historically grounded and globally comparative research to contemporary crises, connecting past to present to reveal how power structures evolve and how communities navigate violence in vastly different contexts. My research explores not only the reasons behind the breakdown of societies but also the strategies communities employ to endure such violence and the circumstances that enable their reconstruction.

 

My research is shaped by a comparative sensibility forged across multiple regions, through years of fieldwork in Sicily and sustained engagement with European, Middle Eastern, and North American contexts. Based in the United Kingdom, this orientation informs not only how I work across diverse sources and methods but also how I engage publicly with contemporary crises of violence, democracy, human rights, and authoritarianism.

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Books

I am the author of three books:

 

The Moral Trap: How Autocrats Criminalize and Divide Societies

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

 

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

(Cornell University Press, 2026) 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) examines how militants rationalise violence across centuries and political contexts.

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Methodological Approach

My research develops analytical concepts that connect historical rupture, moral discourse, and lived experience. This connection enables me to delve into systematic comparison across regions, regimes, and time periods. I work within a comparative historical sociological framework, combining long-term ethnographic engagement, archival research, in-depth interviews, and advanced qualitative analysis to explore social and political processes over time. Across my work, I examine how violence and injustice are produced, justified, and contested, and how people navigate oppression while seeking dignity and recognition.

 

Research Leadership & 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), 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.
 

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 sociological 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. I have contributed as an expert to the BBC, The Times, and other national and international newspapers and media outlets, and I write regularly for general audiences. For more information, please visit the Media/Public Scholarship page of this website. I have held Visiting Professor and Fellowship 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. Additionally, I am Senior Research Affiliate with the Canadian Network for Terrorism, Security, and Society (TSAS) and the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). I am also an Elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

 

Commitment to LGBTQI+ Scholars

As a gay man, I am keenly 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.

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